A Rose By Any Other Name
by socialpixie555
Summary: Disgruntled film star Ashton Irwin gets in trouble with the media and with his management company, so he is roped into a media stunt to recover his image: Win a Date with Ashton Irwin! Sophie Pashley, a Tesco baker from Sheffield, is delighted when her best friend Hannah wins a date with Ashton Irwin (!).
1. Chapter 1

Ashton was pretty sure he knew what was coming before he stepped into the room. The previous night, he had bailed on a scheduled appearance to meet up with a few friends. As much as he was probably going to be genuinely fascinated with whatever function he was supposed to attend, he felt he needed, nay, he __deserved__ , a night off.

He ignored the stares and whispers from cubicle dwellers as he strutted down the hall to his manager's office. He flung himself into a chair as casually and as fucks-given-zero as possible. The comfort the chair offered, however, was the exact physical manifestation of how uncomfortable Ashton was to even be in the room.

His manager, a sad, stressed man with perfectly parted hair called Luke Hemmings, worked his thumb over the permanent crease between his eyebrows, his Ashton Wrinkle, as it was known. There were a few moments in their relationship when Ashton considered feeling empathy for the poor sod—the middle man between a reckless little shit and an overbearing management company that, for some strange reason, did not enjoy the stunts Ashton pulled in order to maintain his self-given reputation as a reckless little shit in the past year.

"I know what you're going to say," Ashton said.

"Oh?" Luke replied, finally locking his eyes on Ashton.

"I shouldn't have gone with the orange trousers. They were a right disaster. I really should have listened to you; orange really __isn't__ the new black."

"It's not so much that you wore the orange trousers; it's that you took them off." Luke clicked a few times on his computer and threw an image to the large television screen on the wall to his left. It was TMZ's website. Bright and center was a blurry (yet completely recognizable) photograph of Ashton, shirtless, trouser-less, holding onto an unidentified woman and kissing her like his life depended on it.

"Well. Shit," was all Ashton managed to say. Because that wasn't quite what he had expected. Ashton considered offering a CPR-spin for the picture but he knew better than to say. He had a vague memory of the kiss, an even vaguer memory of the abs, a very strong memory of confusion, and an even stronger memory of arousal.

"Modest is losing its __mind__. We've been flooded with phone calls from the press all morning. Mikey is considering suicide. I have grown three gray hairs this morning alone. Would it even __occur to you__ that you are not only going to jeopardize your entire career but also my career, really Ashton, think of me, think of my career. I don't have any other marketable skills and, honestly, neither do you," Luke snapped.

In his reckless youth (which continued into a reckless adulthood, if you could even consider him a capital-A Adult), Ashton had signed an unimaginably binding contract, essentially selling his soul, to his management company in return for the biggest break of a lifetime. At the tender age of 17, he moved to Los Angeles and joined a television series that catapulted him from obscurity to household name-ity.

Nearly ten years later, his ultra conservative management group is still doing everything in its power to present Ashton as the squeaky clean vision of every mom's dreams for their daughter, the quiet Australian boy next door, the heartthrob with a heart of gold and a throb for the ladies, and every other sickening trope Ashton could imagine. Ashton really genuinely tried hard (some days) not to be ungrateful. But. He honestly couldn't figure out how he hadn't gone mad before now. It was probably because his team, Luke as his manager and his publicist Michael Clifford.

He certainly wouldn't admit that. He'd go to his grave denying his dependency on those two idiots.

The triumvirate had been undergoing a rough patch lately as the professionals attempted to keep Ashton in the same tired career path and Ashton attempted to mold himself into a troublemaker.

He had moved away from television seven years ago and was attempting to break into a Serious Film Career. Nothing came his way but shit romantic comedies (modern and period alike) and even shitter action comedies, which Ashton diligently phoned in while secretly hoping one day Martin Scorcese or Kathryn Bigelow or David Fincher would phone him for a life changing opportunity.

That's what he was telling himself. Every change he'd made to himself, he made in the name of marketability. Who he talked to, what he looked like, what he ate. Even what he sounded like, working with a vocal coach for years to morph his accent into something less unique, removing certain parts of his vernacular that weren't easily understood by American audiences.

Lately he did what he could to try new things and talk to new people. Or just do whatever the fuck he felt like doing. Because on some levels, he wasn't even sure who he was anymore.

But that was never a thought he entertained for too long.

"It's just a photograph, Luke," he deflected in an attempt to ignore the bigger issue.

"No. __No__. It's another piece pulled out the wobbling Jenga tower that is your acting career at this very moment. We had literally just got people to stop talking about the stunt you pulled at the Oscars. You are well fucked."

"We didn't actually go that far, unfortunately. It's been a while for me," Ashton said, stretching out his arms and yawning.

Luke gently knocked his head against his desk. "File that under things I don't need to hear about."

Ashton turned in his chair at another knock, this time at the door. It was Mikey, who always looked like he had just woken up five minutes ago but still managed to look like an artful disaster.

"I've just been on the phone with your agent," Mikey said by way of greeting the room. "The studio is suddenly feeling hesitant about your ability to carry __You and I.__ "

"What?" Ashton said, for the first time feeling even the tiniest amount of real worry that he couldn't compartmentalize and extinguish. His next shit romcom was the only offer he had gotten for the year. He hated to admit that he needed it.

"They need your image."

"More than they need my talent? I've trained, you know, I'm an actor first. I've been to drama school. For at least two __whole years.__ "

"Mildly impressed though they are at all two years of your training, you do actually have to think of yourself in terms of marketability," said daddy Luke, happy to endlessly discuss responsible things like finances and marketability and residuals and-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

"Lads. It's one photograph. And it's not even a thing, like," Ashton practically pleaded. It wasn't a thing. It wasn't. He promised. Totally not a thing. He was drunk and he was horny and he latched onto the first thing he could. Nothing else to it.

Mikey closed the door behind him and sat down in the chair next to him. He exchanged an uncomfortable glance with Luke as he considered his words. "Is it nothing?"

He dated who he was told to and slept with who he was told to and generally felt nothing about almost anyone. "I am a disreputable drunk. And that is exactly what you're witnessing there."

Luke pursed his lips. "Okay," he sighed.

"Am I to be relieved that being a disreputable drunk is less detrimental to my career than not having one?"

It was Mikey's turn to sigh. "We're with you, Ashton. We hate the idiotic standards here as much as you do, but we do what we have to do to work."

"What a steaming pile of bullshit," Ashton snapped, standing up with the intention of leaving.

"Ash. As far as the two of us are concerned, what you get up to in your personal time is exactly no one's business. But publically, we have to consider the consequences. We have to consider your career. And we have to consider how easily you can get blackballed from anywhere Modest has reach," Luke explained, all practical and responsible and stupid.

"This is much ado about nothing," Mikey said. "We just have to reinforce that to the studio. You need a little bit of goodwill. I've been thinking-"

"I talked to you about how dangerous that was, thinking," Ashton interrupted.

Mikey fought back a smile, but he didn't fight hard. "And I think I've found a solution." He nodded at Luke, who was already hard at work on his computer and threw another graphic onto the television screen.

Ashton' eyes widened as he digested what was on the screen. "Never in a million fucking years," he argued fruitlessly.

"Oh. My. __God__ ," came a shout from the break room of the Hillsborough Tesco. "Oh my great giddy aunt. Oh holy __shit__."

Sophie perked up at the expletive. She set down the loaf of bread she was slicing and wandered over to the break room, most conveniently located next to the bakery, which is likely why she and her coworker Hannah never got any substantial work done.

Hannah was seated at the employee computer—which technically existed for training purposes and not for internet browsing—gawking at the website onscreen. She was pulling at her hair anxiously and furiously squinting at a long paragraph of impossibly small print.

"You're scaring the customers away with the high pitch of your screeching," she said, not entirely convinced she'd actually hear her. She didn't acknowledge her existence until she finally lumbered over and touched her shoulder.

She turned to him with eyes wider than formerly thought humanly possible. "Sophie. __Sophie__. Sophie. This is big. This is. Monumentally big."

"Have the scientists finally cured cancer then?"

She grabbed ahold of her blonde curly hair and pulled her in close to her face. "Bigger than that." She turned back to the computer and scrolled up the main graphic on the page.

Big, bubbly, color-changing letters read out "Win A Date With Ashton Irwin!" Four exclamation marks seemed mildly excessive to Sophie. A crinkle-eyed, tight-smiling Ashton Irwin stared up at him.

Sophie always sort of pictured him as a Labrador personified, a sort of chaotic neutral frat boy. He had a reputation as a quiet, mysterious, earnest, good ole chap from merry ole Sydney. But if you paid real attention, he recently seemed far more interested in doing everything he could to ruin the lives of members of the press everywhere, whether it was refusing to appropriately answer (or even pay attention to) interview questions or constantly making rude gestures to paparazzi, which would make publishing their pictures of him a little bit harder.

So that's what made her reread "Win A Date With Ashton Irwin!" four or five times before she actually believed someone like Ashton Irwin would condescend to such a competition.

"This can't be real," she muttered, taking control of the mouse from Hannah and reading.

"It's confirmed by every major entertainment magazine. All I have to do is enter. About fourteen thousand times. And I could win a date with Ashton Irwin."

Sophie mentally added four exclamation points to the end of her sentence. "Are you going to?"

"Of course I'm bloody going to enter," Hannah said. "Aren't you?"

"No." Sophie's eyebrows quirked up, momentarily amused by the idea of winning before quickly destroying that line of thought. "Why is he doing this?"

"Something to do with charity. For every entry he gets, he donates like a penny to starving children in Ghana," Hannah said and then paused. "Pretend I said that like I care about that, because I do care about Ashton Irwin giving to charity. It's admirable and I was just in the headspace of a fourteen year old girl just now."

"Thank god there's an age minimum," Sophie said, squinting at the fine print that all girls had to be over 18.

"I have to describe in 140 characters or less why I want to go on a date with Ashton Irwin."

"He's fit."

"Everyone will say he's fit."

"Everyone would be telling the truth," Sophie said. "Although I guess there are probably more factors involved in dating beyond, like, fitness. How is anybody supposed to know if they'd want to date Ashton Irwin four exclamation marks when nobody knows him?"

"If Ashton Irwin walked into this room right now and said, 'Sophie Pashley, I know I don't know you and you don't know anything about me other than my fitness, but I sure would like you to go on a date with me,' would you go with him?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, come __on__." Hannah gave the biggest eye roll known to mankind.

"Okay, okay, I would definitely go on a date with Ashton Irwin."

"Me too. But why?"

Sophie put her finger to her lips as she considered. She didn't have any interest in Ashton being famous, because that sounded more like a hassle than a perk. "I don't know. He seems all right, I guess."

" _ _He seems all right, I guess__. Fucking useless. He __seems__ like a prince."

"He's played one once, at least." She stood straight, squeezed her shoulder, and walked for the door. "May the odds be ever in your favor," she called out to her.

She returned to his abandoned loaf of bread. She halfheartedly sliced perfectly thin slices as her mind drifted to a dangerous place of daydreaming. She wondered what it would be like to Win A Date With Ashton Irwin! She wondered whether his carefully constructed Prince Charming hair was stiff as cardboard with hairspray. She wondered a lot.

Sophie was mildly fascinated by him, as most people were. He was a small town success story, and every citizen of Sheffield under the age of 25 had at one point thought if Ashton Irwin could get out of his own small town in the suburbs of Sydney (Sophie could never quite remember which town it was or even if it was small, as everyone else in the world considered Not-Sydney, Australia to be a small town) and fall into millions of dollars, pool parties full of scantily clad ladies, and casual speaking terms with George Clooney, well, just about anybody could.

Sophie had begun to lose hope when no announcement had been made for at least three weeks following the close of the competition. Sophie enjoyed how happy the possibility of winning had made Hannah. Hannah however always sort of laughed it off, as though it didn't matter. And it really didn't seem to matter to her. Sophie spent more time thinking about it after the fact, though she didn't care to admit it. Then they were both convinced it would never happen.

Sophie was downright floored when Hannah got a phone call at the store saying she had won the competition and in just two days' time, a limousine would take her to Heathrow, and she would be flown out to Los Angeles. And now that their dream, against all odds, was a reality, Sophie was ashamed to say she was incredibly nervous about the whole thing.

"Well, fuck me," Sophie said softly.

"I've tried, but you said you weren't interested," Hannah said, a years old inside joke between the two of them. She was barely containing her excitement after initially exploding quite loud as she took the phone call in the break room that customers complained and a manager came to censure her.

"You actually won a date with Ashton Irwin four exclamation marks."

"I prefer to think that Ashton Irwin won a date with me four exclamation marks," she said.

"He's a lucky man." Sophie pecked a kiss on her forehead. "Go home and start thinking about what to pack. I'll cover for you."

"This is the second best thing to ever happen to me," she sighed, falling dramatically into her arms.

"What's the first?" she asked, although he knew her answer.

"I'm keeping that space open for the future." She tugged on her hair and winked at Sophie, both actions that incidentally annoyed the hell out of Sophie, before dancing back to the break room. She would dutifully return to their townhouse tonight and assist her in making some of the most important decisions of her life, as far as packing was concerned. And she would be perfectly supportive. And she would worry about her, but only silently.

Hannah texted her constantly on her hours long drive from Sheffield to Heathrow. Radio silence fell as she turned off her phone in an attempt to sleep during her direct flight to Los Angeles. Sophie, however, continued to text her stupid things she could read to help ease her nerves once she landed. She had never flown in a plane before and she had never been to America before and she had never had a date with an international celebrity before. So Sophie was feeling for her. And she sent her one last idiotic selfie (with her hair twisted into little horns and the most mischievous look she could muster) before going to bed herself.

The next day, Hannah texted her pictures of some Hollywood landmarks she saw before returning to her incredibly swanky hotel room to spend the next five hours stressing over how she was going to look.

"I'm sure anything you wear will be fabulous and I think actually Ashton Irwin four exclamation marks is contractually obligated to think you're beautiful anyway," Sophie said, with her cellphone sitting between her ear and shoulder as she was closing up the bakery at work.

"I'm not going to look good for him, I'm going to look good for me. I want to feel like a pretty pretty princess and I want to wear something for once in my life that isn't smeared with flour or drenched in the sweat of a working girl." She sighed audibly as she ruffled through her case. "Also what if there are paparazzi. I don't want to embarrass him."

"Why would you care about embarrassing him?" Sophie said, reacting immediately to her fear that Ashton Irwin is a complete twat. "He's not more special than anyone else."

Hannah sighed again, even more exasperated, but this time at Sophie. "Wouldn't you do anything you could to avoid embarrassing a perfect stranger who has done nothing but be kind to you? Honestly, Sophie, what has gotten into you?"

Sophie's cheeks flushed with shame. She admitted to herself that had been picking on her in a lame attempt to keep her from becoming too invested in Hannah's date with Ashton. She wanted her to maintain perspective. Hannah was too excited about the whole thing for Ashton Irwin to spend the entire night on his mobile or who knows what else. She wanted her to remember he wasn't actually going to publically hold a randomized competition to find a girlfriend. If he wanted that sort of thing, Ashton would have been on __The Bachelor__ a long time ago.

"You're right. I'm sorry. I just don't want you to get hurt by him, Hannah."

" _ _Soph__ , I am completely in control of the situation and my feelings. I am not a senseless little girl, I'm a sensible lady with half a university education and a date with a very good looking famous man. He's not going to get in my pants and I'm not going to fall in love. Will you __please__ get ahold of yourself?"

"You're right. Sorry. I know you'll have a great time. So long as you don't puke from your nerves."

"I'm hanging up now because I'm going to get naked and I feel weird being naked on the phone with you."

"I hate to break it to you, but I'm naked on the phone with you all the time."

"Fuck off. I love you." She hung up. Sophie artfully slid her cellphone from her ear down into her apron pocket, a practiced maneuver that didn't get any flour or stray dough from her hands on the phone. She would go home later, pop in the first Ashton Irwin film she could find out of Hannah's giant pile of DVDs, and wait anxiously for any text messages from Hannah or any hits to the Google Alert she had put on her name two days ago. Just in case she needed her.


	2. Chapter 2

Mikey held up various outfit suggestions for his date, all of which Ashton made a face at purely on principal. "Girls love you in blue, it brings out your eyes, it tests very well," Mikey explained. "Also you fucking owe me one, so sit down and take off that ratty band t-shirt before I rip it off you and burn it in your obscenely huge fire place."

"You own more ratty t-shirts than I do," Ashton argued.

"Yes, but I make them look __good__."

This was Ashton' favorite kind of Mikey, flustered but still bitchy. The type of Mikey that sounded just a little bit ridiculous saying things like __girls love you in blue__. The type of Mikey he would do anything for. Ashton promptly stripped down to his pants and held out his arms expectantly.

"Dress yourself. Kate will be here in ten to do your hair, then we are leaving by 6.45 __on the nose__ , Irwin." Mikey goosed Ashton' ass and left his bedroom.

At precisely 6.44, Ashton presented himself to Mikey, who had made himself at home watching television in the living room. Mikey critically inspected Ashton, who was wearing jeans without any holes, a crisp button up, and a black blazer. "Yeah, I suppose, that'll do," Mikey said, swinging his feet off the coffee table.

"That'll do? There's nothing about me that isn't amazing right now."

Mikey tugged on the lapel of Ashton' blazer. "Do you still regret the loss of your jean jacket?"

Ashton narrowed his eyes and growled as best he could (which was not very well), "Every damn day."

Mikey rode in the large SUV with Ashton to the winner's hotel. He briefed Ashton from his stalker-level file on the girl they had strategically chosen.

"Her name is Hannah. She's from Sheffield, Yorkshire. She works at Tesco."

"What, you couldn't find a girl from Australia?" Ashton rolled his eyes.

It was the fans from the Nebraskas of the world that loved him hardest and most uncomfortably. They figured, he was sure, that he would drop in some day off a bus, with nothing but a duffle bag and much more metaphorical baggage via tragic backstory, and whisk them away from their boring lives as farm hands or Tesco cashiers or whatever people did in small towns in the twenty-first century. Sheffield, Yorkshire sounded very Nebraska indeed.

"We're not trying to be __that__ obvious. But we could do for a reminder of your image. More British everyman than Hugh Grant."

"Hugh Grant is a twat."

"So are you. But he worked for twenty years before anyone found out he was a twat." Mikey kicked at Ashton's feet.

"Oi, prick, you're going to scuff my unnaturally clean brand new shoes that clearly belong to me and were not purchased today by a stylist."

"She's going to be okay. They all had to put why they wanted to meet you in 140 characters or less and she said, 'He seems all right.' So clearly her expectations aren't very high, which is exactly where I want her."

Ashton flipped Mikey off. But playfully. Mostly.

"She's got the look, wide-eyed innocence and kindness, exactly what you need. She has no criminal record or any sort of red flags. Her Twitter is normal, quotes and almost funny observations about her life. She doesn't run a crazy fan Tumblr about you, her ships are standard, she's respectful and patient with old people on Facebook. We've had profilers look at her. I've talked to her. She's signed all __seventeen__ of the Non-Disclosure Agreements the lawyers at Modest drew up. She's harmless. You'll like her."

"Wait. She has a boat?"

Mikey and Ashton pulled up to the service entrance of the hotel. Ashton was to publically bring his winner—Ellen, Erica, Amanda, fuck, what was it—to their car once they had gone over the logistics of the evening and once Mikey was sure she wasn't going to pass out just being in proximity to Ashton.

They walked down the hall to the suite and stopped in front of her door. Mikey held his hand out to stop Ashton from knocking. Ashton quirked an eyebrow up.

"Thanks," Mikey said softly, and Ashton filled in all the blanks. He didn't feel like he deserved thanks, and deep down he felt just a little bit for the amount of stress sitting on his friend's shoulder and how much of that stress (okay, all of that stress) was put there by him. So he didn't joke or retort or run a hand destructively through Mikey's carefully constructed hair. He hugged him briefly, letting go with a tight squeeze, and knocked on the door. And he felt like a complete asshole.

A wide-eyed young lady yanked the door open quickly, as though she had been waiting on the other side, but the door was caught in the security chain she had left on the door. "Ah fucking fuck," she said with surprise and slammed the door quickly. Ashton was instantly charmed, which he regretted immediately. She fumbled around on the other side of the door before pulling it hesitantly back open again.

"I wasn't meant to say fucking fuck to you, I'm so sorry, that's quite possibly the most embarrassing thing I'll ever do, at least for the next five minutes, please come in, do you want to come in, I'm not really sure—" she said quickly and loudly, clutching the door until her fingers were white.

"Thanks, love, we'd love to come in," Ashton said calmly, flashing a smile.

She choked out a 'ha,' her eyes stuck to his smile for a moment. Ashton moved forward a little after exchanging a quick worried glance with Mikey. She led them to a couch and refused to sit until the two of them sat together. She then sat down on an armchair next to them.

"I'm Ashton," he said, extending a hand.

"Yes," she said, taking it and firmly shaking. He waited patiently for her response. She sat in silence for a few moments. "Oh. Hannah."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Hannah. This is Mikey, my publicist."

"We spoke on the phone," she said, shaking his hand firmly as well. "Lovely to meet you at last."

"Mikey's going to walk us through the plans for the evening. It's going to be very low key, but I want to make sure you're not overwhelmed by any of the press trying to stop you and talk to you. Is that okay?" Ashton was extraordinarily proud of himself for how professionally he was behaving at that moment and fully expected a generous reward from Mikey and Luke the following day.

Hannah nodded furiously as Mikey opened his file again and began to read The Itinerary for the evening.

Ashton held out his arm for Hannah once they were assured the car was parked in front of the hotel lobby. She looped her arm in appreciatively and squeezed it a little. Ashton gave her a supportive smile, which in turn turned her smile brighter. "Can I tell you a secret," he said quietly.

"No, I can't be trusted," she replied seriously.

Ashton was a little surprised. "Is that a joke?"

"Yes," she said simply and raised a skeptical eyebrow at Ashton. Ashton chuckled a little. A little.

"I never get used to it, the attention; it scares the hell out of me. But there's no reason to panic, okay? I've got you." The level of anxiety Ashton used to feel about the amount of attention he received had kept him from sleeping regularly for years. He had grown up insisting on being the center of attention, a precocious little shit. But attention from your relatives and teachers and mates at school was literally nothing compared to the attention of __nations__.

Hannah tugged herself a little closer to him.

They were greeted instantly by photographers, who shouted questions at the two of them. Ashton removed his arm from hers and instead placed it low on her back, steering her lightly toward the SUV. He held the door open for her, the cherry on top of his gentlemanly pie.

Hannah scooted across the car, leaving them plenty of room for seating and no room for intimacy or shoulder draping or light hand holding. Ashton was slightly relieved.

"I didn't actually think I was going to win. I was just doing it for a laugh, you know? I only entered the once, I mean, the statistical __likelihood__. I promise you I'm a completely well-adjusted person," Hannah said after the car began to move.

"I'm not at all well-adjusted. This will actually be a first for me, dating a well-adjusted person," Ashton responded, to which Hannah lifted her eyebrows and flushed her cheeks. Ashton removed his foot from his mouth and clarified, "That sounded really heavy, I didn't mean dating."

"No, I got you," Hannah said, amused. "Although my mum is dying to meet you. She's told the whole family and she fully expects you for dinner Sunday."

Ashton' smile strained, as though he didn't quite believe she was joking. Hannah's phone chirped, which he snuck a peek at. It was a text: __Here's a fake emergency text, in case he's a creep and you need an out.__ Hannah responded: __Go to bed, Soph.__

The first event in the Itinerary was dinner at a small French bistro, where they could sit secluded in a corner and chat privately. They were light on small talk until they had both ordered.

"What was it that you do? For a job, that is," Ashton started.

"Ehm. I work in the bakery at a Tesco's. You?" Hannah said out of habit. She didn't seem to realize it at first.

"Well. I work in sewage." A smile played on his lips.

Hannah chuckled. "I bet living in Hollywood is a bit like living your life in waist-deep shit. The metaphorical shit being of the bull persuasion."

"How apropos," Ashton acknowledged.

"Ooh, oh ho ho, apropos," Hannah said, affecting a posh French accent. "Look at me, I'm Ashton with my fancy, upper level vocabulary."

Ashton tossed a small chunk of bread at her nose. "Joke's on you, love, I had to Google that word for a film."

"I feel sort of weird asking you about your life," she admitted after a few beats.

"I am a literal open book. You may ask me anything; chances are, it's already been published about me."

Hannah considered this for some time. "What is the number one thing you are most enthusiastic about?"

Ashton responded quickly and without thought, a practiced answer. "I like to be low key, you know, it doesn't take a lot to keep me happy. Maybe some time stretched out on a beach with a special someone, sun and drinks and serenity."

Hannah hummed, looking down at her glass of wine as she turned it slowly by the stem.

"What?" Ashton said as innocently as he could manage.

Hannah shrugged. "I just hoped you were comfortable enough to be honest."

Ashton was irritated, though he wasn't sure if it was because she was right and he was fake and he hated that about himself or because he simply didn't like that she called him out. She didn't fucking __know him__.

They were served quickly. Hannah was sort of baffled by the menu, so she allowed Ashton to order for her. Ashton too was constantly baffled by fancy menus, and usually let Luke order for him. He picked the two fanciest sounding things on the menu, which, now placed in front of them, looked disgusting.

They picked at the food.

"I work with my best friend, Sophie," Hannah said, transitioning, it seemed, into lighter topics, "she's sort of like a culinary genius of baked goods. They let her have her own little section, Sophie's Corner, where she tries out all sorts of fancy recipes and sells them for 50p. Technically we're not supposed to do that kind of thing, but we've sort of got the manager addicted to them."

"That's brilliant," Ashton said, attempting to find interest as he sniffed hesitantly at what he imagined was food.

"I know it's stunningly boring."

"It really is. Stunningly boring. Actively counting down the minutes until we're no longer talking about a Tesco bakery," Ashton said sarcastically before thinking about the consequences. Hannah, however, looked game.

"Ashton Irwin is a cheeky bastard," she announced. She scooped up a small amount of her couscous with her fork and launched it up and over, into his carefully styled hair.

Ashton' eyes lit up, ready to declare war when the waiter casually slid into view and asked them if they needed anything. Ashton looked up at her as couscous fell from his hair to his lap and answered that they were doing excellently.

"Truce," Hannah said immediately following the waiter's exit. "We simply cannot start a food fight in this very __fancy__ restaurant."

Ashton narrowed his eyes. "Oh, I see. You're on Mikey's side, not mine."

"You're correct, he got to me. I'm to be on my best behavior." She tapped her nose.

"That __simply__ won't do," he said, throwing down his napkin onto his plate. "This food is horrendous, let's get out of here. I shall corrupt you yet."

"Thank god," she breathed, standing up from the table as fast as possible.

This was the kind of restaurant that didn't have prices next to the items on the menu, so Ashton laid out from his wallet what he thought was enough to cover, plus an incredibly generous tip by way of apologizing for bailing.

"Paps out front, let's take the back." Ashton grabbed her hand, though he wasn't sure why, and led her through the kitchen, to the shock and scandal of several chefs. Unable to contain their laughter, they burst out the back door, into a side street. They giggled like idiots, though nothing about this was funny or remotely interesting. Ashton actively imagined the looks on Luke and Mikey's faces when they realized he ditched The Itinerary.

The night lay before them, full of promise. That promise mostly consisting of mischief.

 _ _Go to sleep, Soph__.

Sophie had chuckled and did what she asked the previous night, awaking a few hours later to turn off her phone, which was beeping erratically with Google Alerts from people attempting to live blog their date. Sophie decided she didn't care to know what happened until Hannah told her. Unless the Google Alert was that she was murdered, in which case she would regret turning her phone to silent.

She had missed her last two text messages, arriving at 12 am PST: __Still alive, lovely night, we're getting married in two weeks.__ Twenty minutes later came: __Wanted to clarify because I'm scared you wouldn't realize I was joking. We got married tonight.__

Once she woke, Sophie texted her back some choice words about her being a little shit before heading to work. She spent that evening at the pub around the corner from her home. The bartender, a delightful chap with brunet hair that was plastered upwards for at least a mile, was flipping bored-like through television channels.

"Hood," Sophie said __very__ seriously. She plopped down a tray of muffins that weren't good for sale the following day.

"Pashley," Calum answered gruffly. They shook hands like men. Calum stopped the channel surfing on a picture of Ashton Irwin and their own girl Hannah and took a muffin or four.

"Saints alive," Calum muttered, squinting at the television.

"Switch it," Sophie said instantly as the commentators on the entertainment program began speculating whether Hannah had slept over at Ashton' house the previous night. They had been spotted very late at a 24 hour Del Taco in proximity to his home.

Calum switched off the television. "Did she stay over?" He got to work pouring Sophie her favorite before popping almost an entire muffin into his mouth at once. Sophie always sort of worried about the choking hazard, but there was just something flattering about somebody so desperate to eat her food that they'd risk asphyxiation.

"I don't know." And she didn't care. Any pictures she had seen of Hannah, she had been extraordinarily happy in. And she trusted her text message. After her initial wariness of the situation, she had relaxed into being glad she was enjoying herself. She succeeded in her enthusiasm. Happy Hannah makes a Happy Sophie.

"She didn't tell you if she slept with him?"

Sophie choked into her freshly poured drink. "No, Christ, Calum, she doesn't text me every time she has sex. Normal people don't do that." Sophie wiped his mouth. "Also our walls are very thin."

"You're right, I s'pose. If I texted you every time I got some, you'd probably go over your monthly limit."

"Monthly limit. What year is it in your brain? Everybody has unlimited texting here in the future." Sophie rolled her eyes and gulped down half of her pint.

"How are you holding up without her?" Calum peeled back the wrapper of another muffin.

"We are not __that__ co-dependent, Calum."

"You're not actively planning the murder of Ashton Irwin in the event that he replaces you?"

"I've narrowed potential murder weapons down to revolver, candlestick, and lead pipe."

They chuckled quietly. "When's she due home?"

"Tomorrow night." She was on a plane at this moment, in fact. And yeah, okay, __fine__ , Sophie did miss her something fierce.

"Ace. Bring her by. I've an excellent cure for jet lag."

"Sure thing."

Calum was echoing the talk of the town. Everybody was suddenly very rudely interested in every aspect of Hannah's life, even though it was nobody's business at all. Sophie was bombarded with questions at the shop all afternoon, after entertainment sites released where Hannah worked. It was a small (unfortunate that she had to call it small) miracle that nobody had figured out where she lived.


	3. Chapter 3

Sunday morning, Luke looked like he was going to kiss Ashton. He had both of his hands around Ashton' face and his face was in close proximity. And he looked gleeful as hell. Ashton stuck his tongue out and attempted to lick Luke's nose. Luke's head jerked back.

" _ _Ashton__ ," Luke chastised, although, he didn't seem to be mad. "There is literally no way in the world this weekend could have gone better. Thank you. __Thank you__." He smacked Ashton' cheeks before letting him go.

Ashton smirked. "You owe me so many favors."

"That's the opposite of true. You're only doing this to apologize to me in the first place."

Ashton considered this for a moment. "No, I don't think it works that way. I think you owe me favors."

Mikey snuck into the office. He stood by the door and crossed his arms. He looked markedly less happy than Luke did. "No word from the studio yet."

Ashton made a face.

"You left the restaurant."

"It was not a very good restaurant."

"You abandoned The Itinerary."

"It was not a very good itinerary."

"It was an __excellent__ itinerary."

"I need to feel free, Mikey. The wind in my hair and all that."

"You were off the grid for almost 18 hours with Hannah. I'm genuinely surprised you got her to the airport in time."

"We were having fun!" Ashton pouted.

"If you had the wind in your hair, you would lose your mind."

" _ _Well__ , you got me there." Ashton pinched Luke's cheek and ruffled Mikey's hair and ran out of Luke's office as fast as humanly possible just to avoid the consequences.

Back at his home, he tried to focus on literally anything but his weekend. Which was an admittedly excellent weekend. He thought of late night tacos and photobombing tourists at Grauman's Chinese Theatre yesterday morning. He thought about their hours long debate where she tried (and failed) to convince him to sneak up to the Hollywood sign. He thought he should have told Mikey about his patent refusal to get arrested and how that might have won him extra points. He thought about how she made him stay for pictures and autographs for fans whenever they could.

"Personally," she had said, "now that I know you-"

"Oh, you know me?"

"Intimately, like a life-long friend, have I known you, I don't see what the appeal is. But for some reason, these people __like__ you and you have the opportunity to be the second best part of their day by doing something simple like paying attention to them when you're not on private time."

"Are we not on private time?" Ashton had asked, quite unsure of the answer himself. He had enjoyed her company and their mutual love of mischief enough to spend her last half day in Los Angeles with her.

Hannah made a knowing glance at him, saving him from acknowledging the truth. As much as he liked Hannah, he could not deny that she was doing wonders for his image. And worst of all, Ashton felt conflicted about it.

"Wait a minute, what's the first best part of their day?" he had asked, once it dawned on him.

He made the decision so quickly. He wasn't sure he knew what he was doing, but he knew he didn't want to spend a lot of time thinking about it, lest he talk himself out of it. He was suddenly negotiating a flight to the airport in Manchester with his assiLaurent over the phone as he frantically tossed a week's worth of clothing (carefully ignoring all clothing that 'tested well') into a case.

"Shall I tell Luke?" Lauren asked.

"If you tell Luke, I will sack you." There was silence. "You won't be sacked but if you tell Luke, I will make life very particularly miserable for you."

"So will Luke, if he finds out I lied to him."

"Nonsense, Luke's too nice to make anybody's life miserable but my own. When's the flight?"

"Four hours. But you would have a three and a half hour layover in Heathrow. I can also set you up with a train. Or you could drive to Sheffield in that time. If you want to risk breaking another car."

"That's a fair comment, but in the future, I'd rather you fuck off. Keep the layover. When do I arrive?"

"Four-thirty tomorrow afternoon local."

Perfect. Just in time to take her to dinner. "Book it," he said, tossing his phone on his bed after ending the call.

Hannah had stopped vomiting about an hour ago. Sophie had taken Monday off work to spend time hearing about her trip and doing other welcoming type things. She didn't think Hannah would go straight to sleep upon arriving Sunday night and she certainly didn't think she'd awaken sweating and vomiting.

Sophie sat next to Hannah's bed and flicked through the photos on her camera, which she had attempted to show her an hour ago before falling asleep. There were beautifully framed photographs of LA, which looked just like it did in films. There were none of her date, but she had snuck a few the following day. One was of Ashton with a fan outside of Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

It was candid, Ashton engaging and smiling with a little girl who couldn't have been more than eleven. In the next picture, Ashton glanced out the side of his eyes at the camera, the next he was full out scowling at her, the next he was charging her, the next an out of focus shot of the ground.

Sophie at this point could imagine the struggle and could practically hear Hannah shouting, "You'll never take me alive!" or something suitably dramatic. The three following shots were of Hannah, who made grumpy faces at the camera.

Sophie looked up at the knock on the door downstairs. She half ran down the stairs, unable to remember if she was expecting Calum or had ordered something. When she pulled open the door, she found Ashton Irwin.

Ashton frowned at her for half a second. "Oops," he muttered, glancing down at a scrap of paper.

"Hi," Sophie said and paused awkwardly. "You're looking for Hannah."

Ashton looked up, relieved, eyes locked on Sophie's for a few moments before he remembered to speak. "Yes."

"Come in," Sophie said, moving out of the doorway. She tried not to stare as Ashton walked by. She failed. The fact of the matter was, she severely underestimated how really, really ridiculously good looking Ashton Irwin was. And also how tall he was, not that he looked short on film,but seeing him in person instead of her TV was a completely different experience. Ashton pulled a rolling suitcase over the threshold after him.

"I'm Hannah's roommate."

"Sophie," Ashton supplied, catching Sophie's breath in her chest. The way he said it echoed in her brain a couple of times. "I'm Ashton. Hello."

"Hi."

"Hello," Ashton said again.

Sophie paused, bemused. "Hello."

Ashton seemed to realize then. "Sorry. Just being… thorough."

"Hannah is very sick. I've only just put her to sleep," Sophie explained eventually after the conversation hadn't gone anywhere. Neither of them seemed to be able to do words. "Not like __to sleep__ , that sounds like euthanasia, she's not that sick, I mean, like, she's sleeping now."

Ashton' face fell into concern. "Oh, well, shit."

"She probably caught an American disease. I told her to get inoculated, but she would have none of it," Sophie joked, although immediately slightly regretting it, in the event that Ashton Irwin! (it hit him again, there he was __in her house__ ) thought that Sophie thought that American diseases were a thing and like ten other worries.

"It could have been the Del Taco. Sometimes that stuff has a lengthy incubation period before turning nasty," Ashton said, pulling a half smile that sent a shiver down Sophie's spine.

That was it. He needed to go. "She'd kill me if you saw her like this. Would you like to come back tomorrow?"

Ashton pursed his lips obstinately. "She upstairs then?" he said as he left his case behind to climb the narrow staircase.

"Um," Sophie said intelligently, lumbering after him.

Ashton rounded the top of the stairs and reached for the first door. Sophie snuck around him quickly and braced herself against the door. "Mine," she said.

Ashton narrowed his eyes and Sophie thought she could see Ashton consider finding a way into her room anyway. He turned instead, passing the bathroom that separated the two rooms and entered the other bedroom.

Hannah slept with her mouth open as she desperately hugged at a small pillow. Her hair was akin to a haystack. Also the room smelled like vomit, which wafted up from the plastic bin Sophie had forgotten to clean up.

Sophie started as Ashton entered the tiny room. Ashton surveyed for a minute. She watched Ashton pick up the bin and some discarded tissues and paper towels from the floor. A protest died on Sophie's lips as Ashton approached him.

"Trash bags?" he asked softly, to not wake Hannah.

"Litchen," Sophie answered dumbly. Ashton looked confused. "Living room kitchen. They're just the one room. Litchen."

Ashton snorted. "Okay," he said in that tone people use to indicate they think the person they're talking to is a complete nutter.

Sophie had no choice but to follow him back down the stairs and into the litchen, where Ashton expertly deduced the trash bags lived in the small pantry by the refrigerator.

"Where shall I dump this?"

"Bin outside behind the herb garden. Well. Herb patch." Ashton turned to leave with the bin liners and the soiled bin, but Sophie caught his arm. "You don't have to do this." Ashton stared at their connection with a face Sophie couldn't solve. Sophie instead quickly removed her hand and Ashton took a moment before he smiled up at Sophie. Sophie couldn't tell if it was genuine.

"You will learn very quickly that I never do anything I don't want to do," he said before leaving the house. Sophie stood paralyzed before the refrigerator, trying to account for the weirdest four minutes of her life just then. And also why Sophie wanted to put her hands on Ashton constantly, despite his being a complete stranger and here for Hannah and not at all interested in Sophie.

Ashton Irwin needed to leave, she decided as Ashton Irwin returned to the litchen with a clean bin. The thought of cleaning the bin after the vomit was in it had escaped Sophie in the moment. It was a good idea to line it with a bag. Ashton had smartly used the hose by the herb garden to wash out all of the vomit. He pulled another bag from the pantry and lined the bin as Sophie suspected this was an action he had done several times before, vomit disposal.

"If you wanted to-" Sophie began weakly.

"What's for dinner?" Ashton said pleasantly. "I am starved and Hannah says you do kitchen things."

"I do do kitchen things. I was going to do a chicken thing, Hannah's favorite chicken thing," she mumbled, not sure why she was inviting the guy to dinner.

"Perfect, I love chicken things. How can I help?" he asked, moving forward.

Sophie jumped and put her hands on Ashton' shoulders briefly before jerking her hands away. Her eyes flicked subconsciously to the refrigerator, to the sign Hannah had designed:

 _ _Litchen Rules:__

 _ _not cook in Sophie's Litchen.__

 _2-10._ _ _See Rule 1.__

"Aha," Ashton said, his eyes crinkling as he smiled. "Control freak."

"Hannah sets things on fire. She can use the microwave as much as she wants."

Ashton nodded. "Get to it then." He left the litchen to return the bin upstairs.

Sophie flicked on her iPod dock the instant Ashton left. She put on her cooking playlist and began to quietly sing along to calm herself as she pulled on her cooking headband to pull her hair from her face. She slowly removed her bracelets and rings and deposited them in the little bowl she kept on the counter for them. She retrieved a large pan and poured a generous amount of olive oil in it.

She took several long breaths and forgot as much as he could about who she was and where she was and who was upstairs. There was nothing but her and the work. Do the work.

Sophie took her time cooking, though she was upset that she hadn't set the dough out to rise in enough time to eat the croissants with dinner. She would drizzle chocolate over them for dessert instead. She hopped around, expertly checking each small part of the meal. She completed a grand performance of "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien," which always made her feel like an important chef of an important restaurant in Paris, which was ridiculous, but, well, Sophie regretted nothing.

She crooned along to the next song, surprised when she heard a voice softly harmonizing with her. He didn't turn around or acknowledge it, scared Ashton might stop. Sophie sang confidently, leaving room for Ashton to take solos, which Ashton took advantage of, but never took the cue to sing louder.

Sophie's third favorite thing was singing, her second favorite was singing with other people. Her first favorite was obviously baking, because she, unlike Hannah, who was ridiculous, didn't need to leave first open for the future.

The song ended and Sophie was sad to lose the sound of Ashton' voice, which was peculiar, but in a good way, not quite raspy or gravelly but with a similar tone, and much lower than she thought it would be. Ashton didn't sing to the next one, so Sophie turned and smiled bright and said, "Thank you." __Why did I say thank you__ , Sophie thought _ _. That is not a normal thing, you do not thank people for singing with you.__ "I didn't know you could sing."

"Hopefully there are a lot of things you don't know about me," Ashton said, quirking an eyebrow and clearly accusing Sophie of being a super fan or super stalker. He was leaning casually in the doorway, his arms folded up into his chest.

Sophie flushed. "I didn't mean to imply that—I just hadn't heard—well, I guess there's no reason I would have known—"

"Sophie, please take a breath and know that I was joking."

"Oh."

"I didn't mean to intrude," he said, his face changing suddenly.

Sophie didn't ever seem to know what was going on inside Ashton' head, which she guessed made sense. Technically you're not supposed to know what's going on inside other people's heads. Hannah was very expressive and very clear about her feelings. She had known Ashton for all of fifteen seconds, so it was irrational to think she could read him. But… she still always felt like Ashton was walking on eggshells, carefully guarding himself.

Also this whole thing was just fucking __weird__.

"You're not intruding. You were brilliant." However Sophie was hit suddenly by a flash of self-consciousness as she stirred the pot of pasta. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Not long. Although I could hear 'Shout Out To My Ex' from upstairs."

Sophie always seemed to sing that one extra loud, with particular gusto. "Perfect."

"Is that your gimmick, then? The baker with the voice of an angel? Serenading customers with siren songs convincing them to purchase your pastries."

Sophie glazed over the compliment and the thought that Hannah had obviously talked to Ashton about her and that Ashton remembered. "I don't need siren songs to sell my pastries. They're that good."

Ashton chuckled. "What sort of chicken thing are you making?"

"It's, um, chicken, stuffed with mozzarella, sort of wrapped in a-" Sophie had been illustrating with her hands, a knife waving about sort of dangerously. She turned back to the counter. "Well, you'll find out."

They chatted easily as Sophie finished cooking. Ashton peppered Sophie with questions about food and would never stray to anything personal about himself, even if Sophie asked him what his favorite dessert was. Sophie was lightly uncomfortable doing all of the talking, but the decidedly pleasant look on Ashton's face was enough to keep him talking for hours.

Which is exactly what they did.

Ashton and Sophie sat down at the folding table and chairs Sophie removed from the cupboard under the stairs. Sophie waited until Ashton took the first bite of the chicken, followed quickly by a forkful of the mashed potatoes. Ashton' face fell and his eyes closed and he made a sort of obscene moan that Sophie definitely did not react to __at all__.

"This is possibly the best thing I've ever eaten in my entire life."

Sophie beamed and tucked into her own. They ate quietly for a few minutes, Sophie thoroughly enjoying one of her better executions of the chicken thing (not that she was aiming to impress anybody or anything) and would occasionally catch Ashton staring at her thoughtfully.

"Everything all right, then?" Sophie asked the third time she caught Ashton staring.

Ashton did a kind of shrugging thing and focused on his food for a moment. "How did you and Hannah meet?"

"I don't remember exactly. We were very young and one day, I just really wanted to be her friend." Sophie gave his own shrug. "So I latched onto her and followed her around constantly and she couldn't get rid of me and eventually I wore her down and she started talking to me and has refused to stop talking to me since."

Ashton gave a half-smile. "Tell me about young Sophie and young Hannah."

"I don't know." Sophie fiddled with his glass. "We were great big pains in the arse, but with too much charm to actually get into any trouble. Just terrible little shits. She had this awful penchant for pantsing me during public events."

They shared a laugh. "Absolutely nobody warned me about potential pantsing," Ashton said. "I feel like that should have been included in the background check."

"Background check?" Sophie tried very diligently to not find that information slightly worrying.

"Oh." Ashton stared hard at his hands. "Well, we had to make sure she wasn't crazy, you know?"

"I guess you weren't thorough enough, because Hannah is __absolutely insane."__ Sophie got an encouraging light smile from Ashton. "What about you? Well, I mean, I know how you met. But what was it like?"

"The first thing she said to me, I believe, was __fucking fuck__."

Sophie slapped a hand to her forehead. "Why am I not surprised?"

"It was both endearing and alarming."

It took Ashton about three hours and four glasses of wine to loosen up. Sophie methodically (and hopefully conspicuously) pulled little tidbits from Ashton. She didn't want to make him uncomfortable, so she asked easy questions about favorite movies and books and music.

"You don't watch films?" Sophie said incredulously.

"It's weird, like. Sort of trying to make a hobby out of your job, if that makes sense?"

Sophie didn't think that made sense. If he didn't bake at home, he'd go mad. He loved his job, simple as it was, and no amount of work made baking tiresome.

"It just makes me uncomfortable, like, overly critical. I can't relax because all I see is form and choices and mistakes and all of those things."

"You don't think critical viewing is a good thing?"

"Well, sure, but aren't movies supposed to be about fun?"

"Not always. They can be just as much about changing your soul and engaging with the world as they can be about spectacle. That's what art is, don't you think?" Sophie leaned forward earnestly.

Ashton pursed his lips and arched his eyebrows, an action Sophie has very quickly associated with Ashton' impatience. "The shit I do isn't art. It's, well, it's shit. Romantic bullshit that in no way prepares you for realistic expectations about literally everything. It's not __real__. Nobody gets to live that way and it's dangerous pretending otherwise."

Sophie folded her arms into her lap just to give herself a moment to consider what Ashton had said. "Escapism is sort of harmless, if you keep everything in perspective. I don't think there's anything wrong with, like, fairy tales. You don't watch silly things just because they make you happy?"

Ashton squinted at her. "I liked this better when the interrogation was about pie."

Sophie held up her hands in concession and they transitioned back to pie. They took turns checking on Hannah, waking her up to hydrate her and check her temperature, which never exceeded the normal temp and relieved Sophie that she wasn't running a fever. She didn't seem to notice any difference between the two caretakers.

At his most personal, Ashton told Sophie about growing up in Hornsby with his siblings. His face fell a little after the revelation that he hadn't seen any of them in person in five years and that this was the closest he'd been to home geographically in that time.

Sophie maneuvered a cool transition back to the fact that Ashton had never seen __Titanic__. It was so late for Ashton, who was weary with travel and confessed to being awake for nearly twenty-two hours now. Sophie wouldn't send him out into the night, so she pushed him to the loveseat and put in the DVD for him before busying himself with replacing the folding chairs and folding table they had used for dinner into the cupboard under the stairs.

"Aren't you going to watch with me?" Ashton practically whined from the loveseat.

Sophie looked at the dishes, which had food hardening on them for hours, on the counter.

For Ashton Irwin did she break one of her cardinal rules of Litchen Etiquette. She would leave the dishes until morning. Because the terrible truth about Ashton Irwin was that Sophie Pashley liked him a lot.


	4. Chapter 4

Ashton awoke with his head sort of uncomfortably positioned on the bony shoulder of Sophie __What's-Her-Last-Name?__ ,who had in turn had draped her arm over him. His heart raced with their proximity. His feet were asleep where they lay propped up on the tiny coffee table. Without moving too much, Ashton looked up at the girl's relaxed face, sleeping with her mouth just a tiny bit open.

Ashton shoved down all manner of idiotic thoughts about the girl's idiotic wavy hair looking like a halo and how much Ashton was considering staying exactly where he was until his petite pillow woke up. Instead, he pulled himself gently off the couch, snatched his shoes and his suitcase from where they sat by the staircase, and left.

"What the fuck am I doing?" Ashton asked, finally vocalizing the thought he'd had at least twenty times in the last four minutes. He slipped on his shoes and pulled his Public Outing Armor—a maroon beanie and dark sunglasses.

He wasn't thinking about public transit or cabs as he began walking in the direction of the small bed and breakfast he was due to arrive in yesterday.

He was thinking about the strange blonde girl with a perpetual smile. About how the girl never seemed to stop moving when she was on her feet. About how it took the girl literal years to speak long sentences and about how Ashton would be happy to wait as long as necessary to hear them. About how easily and comfortably she flitted around her kitchen—his litchen—multitasking up to five food items at a time. About how driven Ashton was to uncharacteristic kindness due to a combination of sleep deprivation and airplane alcohol. And also probably due to the company.

He had definitely cleaned some puke. But that wasn't anything new.

And then he was definitely lost because he was not at all paying attention to his phone when it chirped directions at him.

It took an hour before Ashton arrived at the B&B. He opened the door to the sizable house and found no one waiting. He wandered forward before nearly getting hit in the face by an opening door to his left. From the bathroom stepped a gentleman with a million watt smile.

"Hiya," he said. "I'm Calum, how can I help you?" He wiped his wet hands on his pants.

"Check in," Ashton said. He checked the confirmation email his assistant sent. "For Danny Zuko." Usually he traveled under a pseudonym and usually his assistant chose something far more subtle. He wondered if Luke had gotten to his assistant yet. He should probably call someone at some point, if only to confirm he hadn't been murdered.

"Perfect," Calum said, rounding the corner to his little desk. He did a ridiculous amount of typing. "Ah, we missed you last night, it seems."

"Yes," Ashton said and almost gave an explanation until he remembered he didn't owe anyone shit.

Calum waited a moment for the explanation that never came before nodding and producing a small key. "Right then. This way, Mr. Zuko."

Calum grabbed Ashton' case without warning and lugged it up the stairs. He brought Ashton to a room at the end of the hallway. It was open and floral and simple and homey. Ashton hated it.

Calum ran him through the meal schedule before he left. He stopped halfway out the door and turned back. "Also, Mr. Zuko, it gets a little cool here at night. If you happen to get chills and they're multiplying and you might lose control, give us a ring downstairs and we'll see what we can do." He winked and ducked out quickly.

Ashton guessed he deserved that.

He threw himself onto the bed and sorted through all of the notifications on his phone for the first time in an embarrassing amount of hours. One hundred thirty-seven text messages, eighty-nine missed calls, and fourteen voicemails. He was in such deep shit. However, he was delighted to see not all of the missed communication were from Mikey, Luke, and his agent. Most of it was from Luke ( _ _If you are not dead, Ashton, I swear to god I may murder you myself! CALL ME.__ ), granted, but hey, not all of it.

He stared at the phone and grappled with his conscience, which ultimately (unfortunately) won out. He pressed Luke's name to call him and wondered how many rings it would take him to answer, considering it was—Ashton used his fingers to count—2 am PST. It was half a ring and Luke sounded perfectly awake.

"Have you been taken?" Luke asked.

"No."

"Are you just saying that because you have been taken?"

"Nope."

"Are you in trouble? Have you been hurt? Did someone systematically remove all of your fingers? Are you stranded on a desert island? Have you lost all of your memories? Are you a sleeper agent recently awakened to work for the CIA? Has someone died? Did you murder someone? Have you been a stunningly elaborate delusion I've created to torture myself and am I unwittingly housed in a mental institution?"

"No, I'm pretty sure, to all of that, although I stopped listening after the CIA."

"Then why the fuck haven't you called me?" Luke exploded.

"Because I knew you were going to be mad at me," Ashton answered honestly.

"Well, thing is, I am more mad __now__ then I would have been if you had called me days ago. So wouldn't it have been in your best interest to tell me then and not now?"

Ashton paused. The thought had veracity, but even after all of this, he still wouldn't give Luke the satisfaction. "Any word from the studio yet?"

"No word. Where are you?" Luke challenged and Ashton should have known better than to attempt to distract the bull.

"Sheffield."

"Why the fucking hell are you at Sheffield, what the fucking hell is Sheffield, have you finally found Christ, then?"

Ashton would have been delighted at the sheer amount of sass Luke was exhibiting for once in his life, if it wasn't being directed at him. "Sheffield is a town in England. Hannah lives here."

The line went quiet for some time. "Hannah. Okay. You spent last night with Hannah?"

"Not really. She was very sick. I was there, but she was sleeping." And I spent all night with her roommate. Her roommate. Sophie. __Sophie__. "I sort of helped take care of her a little."

"You… __nursed her back to health__?" Luke asked, as though he could not believe the words were coming out of his mouth. "I can work with this. This is good. The press will eat that up."

"It's not like that," Ashton said.

"Then what's it like?"

Ashton hesitated and thought back again to the blonde haired girl called Sophie, who also quietly inquired after Ashton' intentions.

"I'm sorry Hannah didn't call you or something; she's been sort of out of commission since returning. She didn't mention you were coming," Sophie had said.

"I didn't say," Ashton had said, his cheeks would have flushed red then if he wasn't already well wine warm. "I just… came over here without really thinking about it."

Ashton had struggled then with the why and Sophie had graciously not asked him. Sophie only nodded thoughtfully. "That's quite the grand gesture. She will be delighted once she has regained consciousness."

It certainly was a grand gesture, akin to running through an airport to stop your true love from moving to Australia or holding up a boombox outside of someone's window. Ashton had unwittingly walked himself into one of his own shit films and the thought disgusted him.

Why had he come?

Hannah had made him feel something. He almost laughed at himself, made him __feel__ something, fuck, he wasn't a __sociopath__. He liked to delight her, is all, which incidentally wasn't very hard to do. He had an affection for her. He wanted to be her friend.

That was new. Ashton had work friends, sure. When you spend 12-16 hours a day on set with the same people, your whole world becomes about them. Once those few months were up, though, they were gone. Separated to different projects, reconnecting briefly at press events, always swearing to grab lunch and never following through.

This sort of thing didn't bother Ashton—he did it to others just as often as, or more often than, it was done to him.

Sometimes, though, he did go out of his way not to let his work friends in, or so he was told. The most recently frustrated was the romantic lead from his last movie, who spat at him, "Oh, that's right, Ashton Irwin doesn't have __friends__ ," before slamming his trailer door.

"Hello? Where'd you go?" Luke said, pulling him out of his head.

"Yeah. Sorry. I don't know."

"Yeah sorry I don't know. Okay. Ashton—"

"Maybe I'm having an existential crisis."

"An existential crisis," Luke repeated carefully.

"Fine. Maybe that's a bit much." Ashton rolled over dramatically on the bed.

"A bit much."

"You know what's helping most? When you repeat the things I say back to me. That doesn't drive me mad __at all__."

"Ashton, are you safe?"

"Yes."

"Should I have someone sent up to you? I can get one of your guys up to you by tomorrow morning."

"I don't need a bodyguard in fucking __Yorkshire.__ "

Luke made an unconvinced sound. "Are you sure you'll be all right?"

"Probably."

"Does anybody know you're there? I haven't slept for worrying about you," Luke said quietly. "The only reason I didn't call the FBI or INTERPOL was Lauren swore you were alive. So it was either she was telling the truth or she murdered you in her basement."

"And Mikey?"

"Mikey loses sleep over no one, this you know," Luke mumbled as he moved around. Ashton suspected he was getting into bed.

"Bed time, Lu."

"Lu. I like that. That's nice. You may call me that," he said, drifting.

"I'll be back in a week."

"Nightmflm," Luke said.

Ashton put his phone down and stretched out comfortably on the bed. He too was asleep in minutes.

Hannah had pulled herself out of bed to drive Sophie to work Tuesday morning before taking herself to the doctor's office, having furiously denied all of Sophie's offers to do everything for her. The first thing she told her about was the extraordinary and embarrassing dream she had about Ashton Irwin coming to take care of her the previous night.

"I literally might have shit myself if he was there, witnessing the __Exorcist__ -like stream of puke excreting from my body," she had said, clearly already feeling better. __That was an image I could have done without reliving__ , he thought to himself.

Sophie decided quickly not to tell her, which instantly gave her day-long anxiety over lying. She burned a tray of cookies at work, which she simply __did not do__.

Hannah showed up at the store at four to talk about her visits, to the doctor and to Los Angeles, since she missed out the whole previous day. She sat at a stool behind the counter, though she was off the clock.

"Food poisoning. Not contagious. But I don't think I'll be able to __look__ at food for days."

"Good thing you came to this giant shop full of food."

"Speaking of, you left a huge mess in the litchen. I genuinely thought I was still dreaming when I saw it because Soph _ _does not leave dishes out__."

"I sort of passed out on the couch," she said, which was some measure of true. Passed out on the couch next to Ashton Irwin, who had made it all the way through __Titanic__ and two-thirds of the way through __Batman Begins__ before falling asleep.

She pretended not to feel Ashton sneak out in the morning. She thought she wouldn't be able to do it, keep still considering the tingling sensations in her arms and legs. She wrote them off as the result of sleeping in an awkward position and not at all due to the close proximity to this virtual stranger she couldn't stop thinking about.

"Are we going to discuss how there were dishes for two people?" Hannah waggled her eyebrows stupidly.

"Nope. Tell me about Los Angeles," Sophie said, taking a rolling pin and slapping it into a mound of dough with enthusiasm.

"Los Angeles was nice. As a tourist, I suppose. Traffic was a nightmare, so I didn't really get to do much, you know?"

"What were you most enthusiastic about?"

"This sounds silly, honestly, but Ashton. He—I don't know how to describe what it's like being with him. Sort of frustrating, I guess, because there are moments when you feel like he's __on__. Like he's performing or something. Calculated, charming, autopilot. And then there are moments of authenticity, where he just feels like a person. And those moments are brilliant and fun and stupid and embarrassing and exhilarating. That's weird that I picked that out, isn't it? That's like a weird thing to identify about him."

"S'not weird," Sophie said, because it's completely true, she didn't say. "So you had a good time?"

"I had an __excellent__ time."

"Tell me literally everything."

"Fucking fuck," Hannah said, looking past him. Sophie whipped around and followed her line of sight to Ashton Irwin, who was removing his sunglasses to squint at some signs. He was approached by their manager Paul, who was stopped in his tracks in a way once he realized who he was speaking to. Paul pointed in the direction of the bakery.

Hannah nearly collapsed on the floor attempting to flee her stool to greet Ashton. She approached the customer counter and said, "Excuse me, sir, how can I assist you?"

"One of everything, please," Ashton said, his face brightening. Authentic, Sophie guessed.

"It's the weirdest thing, I had a dream that you were here last night, and now here you are, what is the statistical fucking likelihood, am I right?"

Ashton carefully flicked his eyes to Sophie, who shook her head, although maybe she should have been nodding. Either way, she tried to indicate with her face that she was giving Ashton a do over and allowing Hannah to save face. It probably just looked like crazy eyes.

"The statistical fucking likelihood looks about 100%. Because here I am," Ashton said, focusing intently on Hannah. Sophie didn't think that was how statistics actually worked. He stood by awkwardly until Hannah rounded on him.

"This is my roommate and co-worker and very best friend Sophie," she said, tugging her forward by the apron.

"Not your __second__ best friend?" Ashton asked.

"No, I think you've got first pretty well sewn up for the foreseeable future, haven't you, Soph?"

"That sounds nice," Sophie said. "It's wonderful to meet you. I assume you're Ashton Irwin."

"The man, the myth, the legend. It's a __wonderful__ , splendiferous pleasure to finally meet you as well. Hannah has said nothing but very terrible things about you," Ashton said with a wink.

"I'm just the worst," Sophie agreed.

"Ashton Irwin, what are you doing here besides scandalizing all of our customers?" Hannah asked, with an eye on the three people gawking openly at him from the meats section.

Ashton moved around the counter and let himself into the baking area. "Well, you weren't at home because I tried there first. And right around the second wrong Tesco, I realized you didn't tell me which Tesco you worked at. So at long last I arrived here."

"I meant in, like, the country."

"Oh. Well. I needed a vacation," Ashton said carefully. Sophie had gotten over looking for ulterior motives last night, but she was still insanely curious.

"Do you want to do something? Sophie is off in an hour, we could go get dinner."

"Delightful," Ashton said, throwing a smile in Sophie's direction. Sophie's own smile widened from pleasant to ecstatic subconsciously, just from having Ashton turn one on her. She turned away to attend to his dough and definitely not to cool down her smile.

The hour went fast as Ashton attended both Hannah and Sophie with ease. Sophie showed him some cupcake frosting techniques. Ashton donned a hairnet over his beanie with a fake pout, which quickly turned into a smile as she began to greet customers, most of whom shouted their surprise. Hannah and Ashton were the talk of the town, so if anyone had no idea who Ashton was a week ago, they sure did now.

Ashton pretended he was working, but he was really just charming customers while Sophie ran around and did all the work and Hannah sat on her stool and laughed. He posed for silly pictures whenever somebody asked, sometimes pulling in Hannah or Sophie.

Hannah watched pleasantly as Ashton and Sophie ate dinner at a small, homey restaurant with large portions of good food – "Just like home," Ashton said. They were put in a corner booth. Sophie let Hannah pick a side, and she quickly slid into the opposite side, allowing Ashton to sit next to her.

Hannah snatched Ashton' beanie from him, leaving his hair in a state of duress. In response to Ashton' protests, she tossed the hat to Sophie, who caught it and promptly put it on.

"That's a good look on you," she said.

"No, no, we can't cover the blonde," Ashton argued. "That's the moneymaker."

"Ooh, very accurate," Hannah said.

Dinner was light and fun and full of jokes and stories and the chemistry of three lifelong friends. Sophie let the others do most of the talking as she hummed and glowed happily from her side of the booth.

Hannah dropped her hands around the shoulders of her friends, as she had taken to calling them, and led them to a park a couple of blocks from the restaurant. They squished on a swinging bench made for two and thought whatever silent thoughts were occupying them.

Sophie's were of pleasant comfort, after having worked studiously all evening to rid herself of the anxiety she was feeling about everything. She was thinking about Ashton and Hannah and the strange world where they could be together and be happy.

"I have to tell you that I'm not here for any reason other than I want to be. I want you both to know that before people start whispering and accusing. Because they will," Ashton said quickly and quietly and with a frown.

Hannah grabbed both of her friends' hands. Sophie carefully watched Ashton slowly sink into Hannah's touch, because even the most casual displays of affection in the last 24 hours had spooked him.

The thought of being a third wheel occurred to Sophie for the first time just then. But Ashton peeked over at Sophie, behind an oblivious Hannah, and they traded smiles.

Hannah planned a surprise trip for Ashton the following morning before she had to close at the store later that night. She wouldn't tell Sophie where she was taking Ashton on account of Sophie's inability to keep a secret. Ashton and Sophie had shared a light and somewhat incriminating chuckle.

Sophie was surprised to hear the front door close later that Wednesday evening.

"Hannah? You're going to be late for work, aren't you?" Sophie called out with his eyes on the oven's clock.

"You're telling me," Ashton said, sticking his head around the corner from the hallway. "She drives like a madman. What's for dinner?"

"Ehm," Sophie said, shifting uncomfortably before holding up a box of macaroni and cheese she had brought home from the store.

"You. __You__ , Sophie, Chef Pashley, you are going to make macaroni and cheese from a __box__?" Ashton said, positively delighted at the culinary hypocrisy.

"I'm pretty tired. I worked 12 hours today," Sophie said, thoroughly embarrassed.

"I can make box macaroni and box cheese. Stand aside, I insist."

"No—"

"I __insist__ ," Ashton said, well, almost shouted, and grabbed Sophie by the wrists. Sophie practiced even breathing as she allowed herself to be led over to the sofa. Ashton pulled Sophie's cooking headband from Sophie's head and carefully slid it onto his own. Sophie's heart skipped a beat.

Ashton shouted at her every time Sophie turned around from half-watching the television to check on the progress of dinner. At the last shout, Sophie turned her eyes mockingly wide and she threw a smile to the ceiling.

At long last, Ashton arrived at the small couch with two bowls of bread crumb-topped macaroni and cheese.

"I improvised," he said proudly as he awaited for Sophie to take the first bite.

"Delicious," Sophie said.

"Of course it is. Next time, though, you and I will definitely make that chicken thing again," Ashton said. "I could eat it every day for the rest of my life."

Sophie nodded enthusiastically and tried not to focus on __next time__.

"Busy day at work, then?"

"Very busy," Sophie said. "Lots of cakes and cupcakes and muffins and such for this weekend."

"What's this weekend?"

"Founder's Day Festival. Commemorating, you may deduce, the founding of Sheffield."

"Well, isn't that delightfully Small Town."

What it was, was trying to capitalize on the sudden appearance of Ashton Irwin and the amount of press the small town had gotten because of the contest. Photos of the three of them (almost always with Sophie half-cropped out) had surfaced on Twitter and other websites as soon as Ashton had shown up at the Tesco. There hadn't been a Founder's Day celebration since Sophie had been alive, but sure enough, earlier that morning the mayor had announced they were bringing back the tradition this weekend (Founder's Day was originally in June) and inviting everyone within two hour driving radius.

"It's a very convenient holiday," Sophie said diplomatically.

"That's true. But I would have been more flattered if they had just named the damn thing after me. I've never had my own festival before." He smiled deviously.

"Do you want to put a movie on?"

"Definitely not."

"All right." A million topics and questions raced through Sophie's brain. He settled on a safe one. "Where did you and Hannah go this morning?"

"Fuck if I know. I don't think she did either. She got me up __before__ the asscrack of dawn so we could witness the sunrise and collectively feel inspired about the world and the future of it. Or something like that."

"Sounds very much like Hannah."

"Endearing starts after sunrise. Everything else is just too earnest." Sophie was on the fence trying to decide if Ashton was joking when he spoke again. "What's the thing with enthusiasm? Hannah. She does this thing where she asks me what I'm enthusiastic about. It was a peculiar word, so I figured it was a thing."

Sophie hesitated as she tried to form her words. Enthusiasm was a close, personal, intimate thing, etc.

"It is, it's a __thing__ , I guess, that we do. To remind ourselves of the things we like and things that make us happy. And that we're allowed to feel happy. And that there's no guilt felt, even in the simplest or stupidest things, if it makes you enthusiastic to be alive, you should take it and live with it. I don't know if that articulates properly."

"So, what, you don't allow yourself to be sad?" Ashton said passively, but Sophie was able to spot dubiousness.

"No, it's definitely not that. It's more remembering the balance? That you are just allowed to be happy as much as you are allowed to be sad. Or maybe it's not even about happiness or sadness. Finding ways to positively engage with the vast world that surrounds you. If you can. Obviously there are people who live shit lives, and I can't even speak to their pain. But for me, there are things about life that I like and things that I want to learn and people that I want to know. And as long as I can manage to live and find things I'm enthusiastic about, it's my responsibility to."

Ashton said nothing, but Sophie could all but hear the wheels spinning furiously in his head.

"You think it's naïve," Sophie guessed.

Ashton made a face that didn't indicate a yes or no. "I think it's admirable," he said after a while. "And it sounds difficult."

"Well," Sophie said, "I suppose it's not for everyone. We're not trying to do anything other than recognize things in the world that make us happy or hopeful or enthusiastic and accept that we are allowed to feel or have those things if they're good for us."

"So if homicide made you enthusiastic?"

"We would probably become very notorious serial killers, yes, good call." Sophie smiled.

Ashton returned it, though his was tighter. Then he lost himself in thought, his eyes locked on Sophie's right shoulder blade.

Sophie stared back at him, tracing her eyes along Ashton' unshaven jawline up to his hair, which he had combed and parted on the right today. Sophie had a small flashback to the first time she had seen Ashton, who had been written in to save a dying legendary American television sitcom. He did save it with wit and charm and an undeniable attraction from young girls. Ashton the boy was all earnest smiles and devious smiles and hair long and hanging down to his eyes because everyone wore their hair in their eyes then, Sophie shamelessly included.

"I'm," Ashton started then, waking him up. "I don't." He closed his eyes and sighed frustrated. "I'm unhappy. Most days. And I don't know why. And I shouldn't be. Because I have everything."

"What's everything?"

"Money and a perfect career and the unconditional love of strangers and two Emmys and two Golden Globe nominations and the knowledge that there's nothing in the world to stop me from having all the things I've ever wanted," Ashton said lowly. "Is an example of the single most selfish sentence in the history of the world. I'm not supposed to be so unhappy if I'm this privileged."

"Well. That is a mountain of embarrassingly fortunate things. The fact that you're self-aware about your privilege is good, I suppose. However. You are __supposed__ _ _to__ be able to feel like a human being. And all human beings get sad, regardless of their lives, that's sort of instrumental to being a __person__."

"What if I don't remember how to be a person. What if I've lost all sense of myself in favor of everything I have to be in order to survive in the life that has been given to me," spilled out of Ashton and Sophie suspected, though this may be the first time he vocalized his thoughts, they were thoughts that haunted him regularly.

"What do you mean, everything you have to be?"

Ashton' eyes narrowed. "Nothing about me is real. My clothes, my attitude, my feelings, my fucking accent. I spent two years with a vocal coach learning to be posh or some shit because posh is marketable to American audiences. I've done everything. I've been managed so closely, I don't even know who I am. And I used to not care. But."

Sophie remembered back to one of the first full sentences Ashton had spoken to him. __You will learn very quickly that I never do anything I don't want to do__. He supposed that was a lie, and that crushed Sophie.

"Even outside of work, you don't feel a difference?"

"Sophie," Ashton snapped. "There is no outside of work."

"What about this week? Is this part of your work?" Sophie pressed.

"I don't know what the fuck I'm doing this week," Ashton said softly. He pressed his palms into his eyes and stayed silent for minutes. "I like you."

"I like you," Sophie answered, feeling heat rise to her face. She instantly felt the guilt, because she knew she liked Ashton, like __like__ - _ _liked__ Ashton, hard core schoolgirl style crushing like. Sophie didn't ever allow herself to pine after celebrity men, let alone really pine at all. She didn't allow herself to have crushes because her hopes had always been slaughtered in the past.

And she certainly wasn't allowed to have a crush on her best friend's pseudo-boyfriend. She hadn't actually had the time to ask Hannah about the boyfriend thing yet, and she reminded himself to later.

"And I like Hannah. There really aren't people like you at home."

"Simple Small Town Folk?" Sophie mocked with a smile.

"Friends," Ashton said.

Sophie's chest sank for Ashton. She reached out and grabbed Ashton' hand. Ashton didn't pull away like Sophie expected him to, but instead he closed his eyes.

"Here's the way I see it," Sophie started, her face pointed at their hands. She dragged her thumb soothingly across them. "You have been told by your fans and by the media and by society at large that you are important and you are worth paying attention to. And you know what? You are important. Because every person on this planet is important. Having your picture taken is cool but it means nothing the second you let it get to your head and let it inform who you are. Famous means nothing. It's a label that can lift you up just as easily as it can tear you down. You're always a person first, Ash. It's __you__.

"You need to be a __person__ now, a good person or a true person or at least consciously making an effort to be good or true, so that when all of those things that are good about your life, those things that embarrass you, when they're gone, you are still a person. Whole, fulfilled, unfulfilled, whatever. When the label is gone, you have to live with yourself. When the lights are off and nobody else is around, you have to live with yourself. And only you are in control of who that person is going to be. I personally believe you're a great one, even if you don't believe it. If you do those things, then you will be a person worthy of being remembered. They'll remember you anyway, it's impossible not to remember you. But you want to be remembered for the right reasons. That you were good and appreciative to the people who were good to you."

Sophie looked at Ashton, who was crying steadily. "Fuck," Sophie said with a frown.

Ashton shook his head quickly and wiped at his face. "Shit, I'm sorry," he gasped. "I never cry."

"I cry all the time. It's very cathartic," Sophie said, completely unable to resist wiping a stray tear from Ashton' face.

Ashton let out a weird sob/laugh hybrid. "Did you just wipe a fucking tear from my face?"

"Yeah? I guess I did."

"People don't actually do that, I can't believe—we've reduced the situation to a fucking __romantic comedy__ ," Ashton said, who looked like he wasn't sure if he was mad or amused.

Sophie frowned. She meant the things she said and had hoped Ashton had meant his too. "I don't know what you mean," Sophie said honestly.

"Nothing. We should talk about something else. We should talk about you."

Sophie wasn't happy with the deflection, but she didn't want to see Ashton uncomfortable and, most of all, she didn't want to see Ashton fake it. So she let it go. Because that's what Sophie did.


	5. Chapter 5

For the second time in a row, Ashton woke up wrapped up in Sophie. But this time, he stayed.

Sophie's clock read 5.39 am as it beeped insistently at him. Ashton was actively thinking that 5.39 am was an odd time and also a terrible time to set an alarm as Sophie began to shift beside him. Ashton kept his eyes closed as Sophie mumbled, "Shit," and pulled her arms from where they were wrapped around Ashton and pull herself slowly out of bed. Sophie didn't turn the lights on, so Ashton watched her through squinted eyes as Sophie looked around for a change of clothing. Ashton imagined she saw something of relief on his face when Sophie realized both of them were still fully clothed in what they were wearing the previous night.

Sophie left a note scribbled by phone light by Ashton and left the room with her change of clothing. Ashton rolled over and pressed his face into the pillow.

The bad part of the night had begun with making Sophie upset after Ashton starting crying. He was irritated at himself, so Ashton did what he did best. He deflected and projected and the next thing he knew, he was frustrated with Sophie.

"Surely you don't want to work at a Tesco for the rest of your life."

"Of course not."

"Then what do you want to do?"

"I don't know. I could move on to Sainsbury's."

"Do you want to open a bakery, your own bakery?"

"That sounds nice."

"What do you have to do to open a bakery?"

"Buy one, I suppose."

Ashton sighed sharply and Sophie raised his eyebrows. "Well, do you want to be on this? What is this?" He gestured at the muted television, a cooking show of some kind.

"Great British Bake Off."

"Luke could make some calls. Luke knows everyone. We can get you on the British Bake Off of Greatness."

"I don't want to be on the Great British Bake Off."

"Fine. We can get you on a Gordon Ramsay thing."

Sophie tensed up and Ashton knew he was pushing too much but he didn't really care. "I don't think I want to be on television," Sophie said.

"Okay. But they would eat you up. We open you a bakery instead. Let's talk to a bank. Luke can call my finance guy, he can give us advice."

"Ash, I can't open a bakery."

"Don't put yourself down, don't ever do that."

"I'm not," Sophie said quietly, frowning.

Ashton sees the smallest Ashton Wrinkle forming between Sophie's eyes, but it didn't quite register in him yet to stop badgering Sophie.

"It's a waste to spend the rest of your life at a shop. You have talent and you need to back it up with ambition."

"It's not a waste. I'm happy there."

"You're trying to convince yourself that you're content, but you're not content. You're complacent," Ashton snapped.

Sophie's eyes were closed, her fists were balled, and her chest rose and fell quickly. But she said nothing. And that's when it registered with Ashton.

"Soph," he started when his phone rang. It was Luke, speak of the devil. He hesitated.

"Take it," Sophie said, shifting away from him.

Ashton walked outside. "Hey."

"We're both here," Luke said.

"Hey, babe," Mikey chimed in.

"What's up?" Ashton said, most of his mind back with Sophie.

"Everybody and their grandmother wants to interview Hannah," Mikey said.

"Why?"

"Because we all want to know about the girl Ashton Irwin flew half-way around the world to be with."

"I don't think she'd be comfortable with that."

"Neither do I. I've already spoken with her. She's fine, she's just been no commenting the paps."

Ashton stiffened. "What paps?"

"The ones that hang outside her store."

"Ashton, calm down," Luke said quickly, somehow sensing Ashton' blood had begun boiling. "This is actually a good news call." Ashton pictured the dirty look Luke threw Mikey.

"The studio?"

"Yes, the studio are coming around. But." Luke hesitated.

"We have been brought a different opportunity for you by your agent," Mikey said for him.

"Why didn't he call me first?" Ashton said, irritated.

"Because this is big and different and it changes the whole game," Luke answered.

"Stop teasing me and tell me what the fuck it is."

"Broadway revival of __Cabaret.__ "

"Cliff?" Ashton said. Romantic lead, sure, but with plenty of good songs and if the Sally was good—

"Master of Ceremonies, babe," Mikey said.

"No shit."

"Yes shit," Luke contradicted awkwardly.

"This is the change you've been waiting for," Mikey said.

"But it conflicts with __You and I.__ "

"And literally the whole image we've spent the last three weeks trying to salvage."

"Fuck the image," Ashton all but shouted. "I want to be the Emcee!"

"Musical theatre isn't very sexy," Luke said.

"Luke's never seen __Cabaret__ ," Mikey argued.

"What? Girls love a triple threat," Ashton said. "Probably."

"You would have to learn to dance."

"I can dance."

"Shuffling left and right while pumping your arms a bit doesn't count as dancing."

"I will learn to dance."

"Ashton. This, um. This could end poorly," Luke said.

"What did Modest say when you told them?"

"I didn't." Luke paused.

"It's okay," Mikey muttered quietly to Luke.

"They're going to say no. And I want you to do it if you want to do it and if I get fired, then I get fired," Luke breathed out quickly.

Ashton' stomach did an unexpected flip-flop. Well, not that anyone ever expects stomach flip-flops, really. "Well, shit, Lu."

"Look, Ashton. We haven't been hearing you and I'm sorry," Mikey said. "We're… going to do a better job for you."

"This bigger conversation needs to happen in person," Luke said gently. "The audition is at the end of next month. I can get a choreographer and a vocal coach up to you there."

"No, I'll be home soon," Ashton said, though he wasn't sure when soon was, if he even wanted it to come at all. "I'll call you tomorrow."

"Are you still doing all right?"

"Yeah. It's good here. I'm enthusiastic," he said because it was true.

"Well, as long as you're __enthusiastic__ ," Mikey mocked and hung up the phone.

Ashton opened the door and found Sophie standing at it, startled.

"Pub?" she asked.

"Pub," Ashton agreed.

That little shit from the bed and breakfast was also the bartender at this shit little pub Sophie dragged him to. He also happened to be one of Sophie's friends.

"Hood," Sophie said seriously and shook Calum's hand.

"Pashley," Calum said. He turned to Ashton and shook his hand too. "Danny."

"Sandy," Ashton replied. Calum passed Ashton a pint without bothering to ask him what he wanted.

"This one's called Greased Lightning," he said with a wink. "And thus my repertoire of __Grease__ jokes is thankfully depleted."

Sophie quirked a curious eyebrow but said nothing because she hadn't said anything in the last twenty minutes.

"Look, I'm sorry if I said—"

"Don't think about it, it's fine," Sophie interrupted and shot back two dodgy looking shots. "Hannah will be here shortly. Grab a booth."

Ashton nodded and took his pint to an empty booth in a tucked away corner. Sophie stayed at the bar, laughing with Calum and whispering into Calum's ear and kissing Calum's cheek and other irritating actions. That's where Sophie stayed until long after Hannah arrived.

"He told me about that thing of yours today, the enthusiasm thing."

"That's 100% Sophie Pashley. I try my best, but our girl really is the architect," Hannah answered fondly.

"You don't think it's a little dangerous? Or at least trying to avoid your problems in favor of just being happy?" Ashton was finally able to articulate one of his main concerns.

"She;s not avoiding her problems; she's just choosing not to drown in them like she used to."

That gave Ashton pause. "What's the story there?"

"Sophie had a comfortable childhood. Big house, lots of money, loving parents, wise butler. But one night when she went to the theatre with his parents, she got so scared of the play that they left. And her parents were mugged and murdered in an alleyway behind the theatre and she grew up alone and angry at the world before she decided very recently to try to make it a better place."

"That explains a lot." Ashton nodded deeply.

"Explains what?"

"The deep voice, all that black clothing, disappearing into the night when a bat symbol shines in the sky."

"Okay, so, we're both full of shit," Hannah laughed.

"You don't have to tell me."

"It's something Sophie should tell. But really she was just very angry all the time as a kid. Cynical. World's most jaded 16-year-old. And she didn't have any real reason to be. I see your face, Ash, I know it's hard to believe, but it's true. She just didn't think she deserved anything she wanted or to feel like people could do more than disappoint her-And here she comes, so be cool."

Sophie crashed into their table, Calum following closely behind, leaving the bar unattended.

"Calum here says that 'Bohemian Rhapsody' isn't capable of creating a group sing anywhere any time," she practically shouted.

"What?" Hannah and Ashton said.

"Calum is telling me that nobody would join me if I started singing it __right now__ which is incidentally bullshit because everyone knows and loves that song and if they don't know it and love it then they are under the age of seven and-slash-or cannot be trusted."

Calum smiled the most devious smile at them and discreetly shook his head.

Ashton was more than happy to take the hint. "I'm with the barman. None of these people would sing with you."

"Fine," Sophie said with a brilliant smile and precariously climbed on top of the table to burst into the opening notes of the song.

"Unfuckingbelievable, I can't believe she's actually doing it," Calum said, shoving Ashton aside and sliding in next to him.

All 23 other people in the pub (Ashton counted) had their eyes glued to the idiot on the table by the time she deftly worked out, " _ _Any way the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me, to me."__

And all 23 people said nothing. Sophie began to lose confidence, which pissed Ashton off. 1. Because he didn't actually like to see the girl upset. And 2. Because now he had to do the right thing and join her. Like a dumb scene in a dumb movie that Ashton had read and rejected. (Sometimes he had standards.)

" _ _Mama__ ," Ashton supplied. " _ _Just killed a man.__ "

Sophie looked down and grinned a grin so bright Ashton was sure his skin would burn. They sang together until Calum stood with a "Fuck it" and also sang as he made his way back behind the bar.

Some of the people were smiling and then others began to sing quietly, no one quite matching the intensity of Sophie Pashley. As if anyone could.

Most of the pub joined in at the ridiculous uptempo part—everyone loved a good __Bismillah no!__ —and Sophie was bouncing dangerously on the table until they cooled down for Sophie to solo croon out the ending. Ashton watched her in pure delight, the way her eyes scrunched up and she all but doubled over with her hands curled into his stomach when she sang at her most passionate. The intensity was sickening and also endearing.

Laughter and cheering followed the performance—though not as much cheering as Ashton felt Sophie deserved.

"Thank you! A round of drinks for everyone, courtesy of Ashton Irwin!" Sophie announced.

There was far more cheering for the drinks.

Sophie climbed off the table using Ashton' head for support and sauntered back to Calum at the bar.

"What a little shit," Ashton said to Hannah.

"Only Sophie," she said, shaking her head. "You better come through on those drinks, though, or they'll all run you out of town."

Ashton moved to the bar. Sophie grabbed him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Thank you for joining me," she practically shouted.

"Are you quite determined to live your life in a clichéd romantic comedy?" he asked, hoping his face wasn't turning red.

"What, you don't believe in fun? That's going to be a great story those people are going to tell their less interesting friends, the time that drunk idiot got everyone at the pub to sing Queen."

Ashton and Sophie dutifully served a pint to every person in the pub and were given a great cheer when the boys and Hannah left an hour later. Hannah and Ashton were carefully guiding a drunk Sophie home.

"Mikey told me there are paparazzi coming to the store?"

"Just some small town guys, not a problem. Paul's telling them to piss off so I don't get caught saying something mean to them. Like how they can fuck themselves gently with a chainsaw."

"I don't like that they bother you."

Sophie escaped from them, running forward, whirling around, and pretending to shoot Ashton with her fingers. " _ _Pew pew pew.__ "

Ashton clutched at his stomach and groaned gamely, stumbling a little until Sophie turned away. Hannah snorted.

"It's fine," Hannah said, nudged Ashton' shoulder. "I will tell you the second it becomes a problem. Friends don't tell paparazzi juicy gossip about their friends. I'm pretty sure I've read that in the friendship manual, there's a whole section dedicated to paparazzi/journalist etiquette."

Ashton smiled. He really liked the word friend.

Hannah yawned big as they deposited Sophie in his room.

"I've got it," Ashton said and Hannah left with a pat on his shoulder. He was instantly hit by how quickly she had grown to trust him and how quickly that trust could shatter when he left.

Ashton sat Sophie down on her bed and removed her black boots. He had infinitely more trouble trying to disentangle Sophie's leather jacket from her limbs.

"If at any moment you feel like helping," Ashton said.

"M'very drunk," Sophie mumbled.

"I am very stunningly aware. What were you thinking?"

"I was sad."

Ashton tossed the jacket aside and Sophie flopped over onto her pillows. "Did I make you sad?" Ashton said quietly as he sat down on the edge of the bed.

"No," Sophie lied into her pillow.

"I'm on the couch," Ashton said, because he didn't want to be alone. Not that he wouldn't be alone on the couch, but he wanted to be in a familiar and comfortable place. A home. It was a new feeling for him.

Sophie grabbed his wrist. "The couch is small."

"Maybe."

"Stay." Sophie tugged on Ashton with a grunt of frustration. Ashton didn't sleep next to people, it was too domestic. But he had that night, Sophie rolling away from him to give him plenty of space and Ashton positioned himself like the dead, hands on his stomach, staring up at the ceiling and wishing he hadn't conditioned himself to feel this much discomfort with intimacy.

"You're a marshmallow, Ashton Irwin," Sophie had said, half asleep.

Ashton closed his eyes on the memory and forced himself to stay in Sophie's bed until after 9 am. The light shined through the curtains of Sophie's small window and Ashton was able to see the room for the first time.

It was small as Hannah's and painted the same ugly tan. An entire wall was taped over with pictures. The rest of the walls were covered with band posters and cramped writing with Sharpie. __They're not going to get their deposit back__ , Ashton thought.

He read a couple of quotes near the wall of pictures as he approached it.

 _ _I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it at full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it, and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be. – Roald Dahl__

 _ _If you can see your path laid out in front of you, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path. – Joseph Campbell__

Ashton felt his whole body soften with affection for the idiot girl with the fixation on enthusiasm.

The pictures were mostly family vacation photos and silly photos with Hannah, a couple with Calum. There weren't many photos of Sophie any earlier than the age of 17, he guessed. But he liked seeing Younger Sophie, all big cheese smiles, wide too-brown eyes, crisp dresses (not unlike the one from last night, which looked like maybe it hadn't seen use in a few years), and blonde wavy hair.

There seemed to be a few spaces where pictures were removed but not replaced. He stopped in his tracks when he found two pictures of himself in the upper right corner of the wall. One of him with a little girl and one of him openly glaring straight into the lens. He remembered these photos from his day with Hannah. He wondered when Sophie had time to get them printed as he resisted the urge to tear them down. He had made Sophie sad, he didn't deserve a place in her home.

He got caught up wondering who or what the missing pictures were of and if he would ever join that group some day. If he would become an empty spot on the wall of Sophie's life. And other sad shit like that. He turned away and spotted the note Sophie had left for him.

 _ _Work until after lunch, then Hannah and I are kidnapping you from Calum's. Please destroy this note so no one actually thinks we're kidnapping you. Sophie x__

Ashton pocketed the note and took a slow walk back to the bed and breakfast to change his clothing. Calum was half-heartedly wiping down the staircase banner while his face was glued to his phone.

"Oh, top of the morning to ya," he mocked with a jaunty lilt as soon as he saw Ashton. He smiled and waggled his eyebrows and showed no signs of being hungover, though he seemed equally drunk as Sophie last night, despite being on the clock.

"Piss off," Ashton said, only lightly irritated.

Calum blocked him on the staircase. "There are people calling around looking for you, trying to find out where you're staying." Ashton tensed and waited for Calum to drop the bomb. "So far as I know, everyone's keeping mum. But word is they're trying to find Hannah's house too."

Ashton inhaled deeply to calm himself. Calum didn't sound finished but he didn't continue. "And?" Ashton prompted.

"And if they find her and harass her at her home because of you, I will break both of your fucking legs," Calum said carefully before returning a smile to his face. "See you for lunch then?"

"Yeah," Ashton said dumbly and walked up to his room.

"Roast beef sandwiches and Sophie's red velvet cake," Calum called after him.

Ashton dialed his mum's home phone number but was greeted by a recorded message that she and the girls had taken a three week holiday to France and if there were any emergencies to call her mobile. Just as well, Ashton thought. It's not like anybody knew he was coming, including himself.

He spent the morning lounging, unable to call Mikey or Luke because of the time difference, which is strange that he suddenly cared. He made a few business type phone calls to London before joining Calum for lunch. There didn't seem to be anybody else home and Calum always seemed completely adverse to work, so he convinced Ashton to kick around a football behind the house until Sophie and Hannah arrived.

Ashton hadn't touched a football in years, but he found it was like riding a bike (another thing he hadn't done in years). Any time Calum maneuvered past Ashton and kicked a ball into their makeshift goal, he ran a little victory lap shouting, "Calum!" at the top of his lungs.

It was exhilarating. Ashton forgot about everything for a few minutes and had fun. It was weird. He sort of liked it. The last time Ashton made a goal, he went for a victory lap of his own before Calum jumped on his back and pumped his hands in the air. Ashton dropped him promptly as he gasped for breath between laughs.

An older lady poked her head out of an upstairs window. "Calum, love, Sophie and Hannah are here—Saints alive, is that Ashton Irwin?" she shouted down.

"Christ, mum, tell the whole bloody neighborhood," he shouted back up at her. Calum scrambled to his feet. "I'm sure you're fine," he said at a normal volume back to Ashton.

Ashton half-heartedly cleaned himself up a little in the bathroom before stopping himself from running outside. Sophie and Hannah were leaned up against the car. They probably thought they looked cool. They were cool.

"Get in, loser, we're going shopping," she said.

"Exotic," Ashton remarked.

"Sophie ripped her jeans today, this is an emergency trip," she said as Sophie pulled out of the driveway.

"We can stop by your place to change. I don't mind." Ashton was immediately not at all surprised Sophie's jeans didn't rip on a daily basis, given that they were essentially like cling wrap to Sophie's legs. Not that Ashton minded. __No Ashton, bad Ashton__ , he censured himself.

"Sophie needs jeans __today__."

Sophie's knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. "Why does Sophie need jeans __today__?" Ashton asked.

"Good question, Soph, why do you need them so badly?" The devilish light in Hannah's eyes shone bright.

"Because I only have two pairs," she said quietly.

"What?" Ashton said in disbelief. "Only two pairs of jeans, you mean?"

"No, two pairs of trousers total," Sophie mumbled.

"That's ridiculous."

"I wash them regularly," she said testily and the subject was dropped.

Sophie modeled each of his jeans selections (all of which looked identical to Ashton) and Ashton and Hannah appraised and applauded when appropriate from where they were seated closely on a sofa.

"Ten out of ten, absolutely, would bang," Hannah announced at the last pair.

Ashton insisted that Sophie purchase at least three new pairs of jeans, which Sophie declined politely. Then Ashton insisted on purchasing them when it became clear to him that Sophie couldn't afford it. Ashton had found Sophie's biggest discernable character flaw and it was pride, which was as admirable as it was frustrating.

Ashton had plenty of character flaws to utilize self-aware-like in order to get what he wanted (including a general stubbornness), so he manipulated Sophie into falling into one of the "Whatever I Can Do to Make You Happy" traps, because Ashton said it would make him very happy to purchase Sophie some shit jeans from the mall.

Also Ashton was a fucking millionaire, but he didn't say that because he had only a small amount of tact.

"Sophie stop moving. Sophie. Please. Sophie, __would you please stand still__ ," Ashton implored.

Sophie had found a life size cardboard cutout of Ashton from some action movie franchise he was part of. Ashton wondered what sort of depths of unpurchased merchandise hell these people had dragged this out of in order to capitalize on Ashton' presence. The cutout was in the window of a strange movie/book/music shop. Ashton insisted on playing around with the freakish thing, which sort of made him uncomfortable but also made him amused. Sophie was to be posing with the thing but he kept shifting into stupid poses.

"Do you want all of the pictures in your section of the museum they build to honor my life to be only blurry pictures?"

"I'm going to be in the Ashton Irwin Museum?"

"Yes, the Sophie Pashley Section in the Hall of Poor Decision Making."

Sophie shot him both a jokingly irritated look and her middle finger, and Ashton snapped that photo.

"That'll be my phone background," Ashton said and set it immediately. He then held the phone out to Sophie. "I need a few for Twitter."

Sophie took a photo of Ashton standing next to Cardboard Ashton and looking comically awkward and baffled. For the next, he then gave Cardboard Ashton a kiss, which delighted Sophie for a moment. The words of the last girl Luke had tried to set him up with floated out of his memory, "The only person Ashton Irwin loves is Ashton Irwin." Rude.

His face must as fallen because Sophie's did too. "What's wrong?" she asked.

Ashton shook his head and Sophie lowered the phone. She put a hand to Ashton' arm and Ashton, without thinking, put his hand over Sophie's.

"We're okay," Sophie said simply.

Hannah entered the store with a soft pretzel. Ashton pulled away from Sophie and couldn't brave looking up to see what that did to her. "Oh my great giddy aunt," she said, eyeing the Cardboard Ashton. "Soph, you need one of those for cuddling when Ashton leaves."

Ashton' breath caught in his chest but Sophie laughed it off. "I'll just use the Ashton Irwin body pillow you've hidden under your bed."

Ashton' eyes widened with delight as he rounded on Hannah. "Body pillow? I think I need to see that. Also I need a marker."

Hannah lifted an eyebrow but fished a black Sharpie from the deep recesses of her purse.

"You are endlessly useful," Ashton said as thanks and began to doodle on Cardboard Ashton. An employee stopped by before Ashton was almost done with his rather elaborate mustache drawing.

"Oh my god, you can't write on that, sir!" she shouted, looking scandalized until she flicked her eyes between the identical faces of flesh and cardboard.

"Two seconds," Ashton answered, finishing the mustache and signing his name across his cardboard chest. "Have you got a phone?"

The employee, sort of paralyzed, nodded and grabbed her phone from her pocket. Ashton plucked the phone from her hands and handed it to Sophie. "Over here, love," Ashton directed her and Sophie snapped a picture of the bewildered employee, Ashton (holding up the Sharpie and matching her bewildered face), and Cardboard Ashton.

"I'll buy this guy and one more if you've got it. Then you sell this online, take the money, and do something stupid with your mates, yeah?" Ashton said. The employee nodded furiously.

"Or donate it to charity," Hannah said.

"Or donate it to charity," Ashton repeated with a humorously large eye roll. He secretly mouthed __do something stupid__ with a firm nod to the employee. "I'm definitely sending one of these to Luke. That way he can have one of us who'll stay quiet and do as he says."

They fooled around at the mall for a while longer before heading back home. Hannah was attempting to discuss dinner plans, early as it was.

"I'm knackered, I'm just going to have an early night. You guys should have a date night," Sophie said, with an inscrutable look on her face.

"You should come with us," Ashton said instantly.

"It's fine. You guys haven't had a lot of alone time," she replied, trying to fix her face into a smile.

"Oh, please, Sophie," Hannah said with an eye roll.

Sophie grabbed Hannah's hand and threw a small, "Excuse us" to Ashton before she pulled her upstairs.

A million things blew through Ashton' mind. He was mad about the bakery thing. Embarrassed over getting pissed at Calum's. Ashamed to have spent the night with his arm draped over Ashton. Ashton pulled away from her. Every one of those options were completely unacceptable.

Ashton was about to stomp upstairs and yell at Sophie until she saw reason. And then kiss Sophie until she couldn't see straight.

Ashton gripped at the staircase. Any time Sophie grabbed his hand, Ashton wanted to pull her closer. When Sophie started pecking him lightly on the cheek, Ashton wanted to turn his head just a little. He was uncomfortable with being touched, but he was apparently prepared to make an exception if Sophie was the one doing the touching.

Thing is, Sophie grabbed everyone's hands and pecked kisses to everyone's cheeks. She loved people and she loved showing it.

Hannah practically ran downstairs. "To dinner!"

Dinner was uncomfortable. It was pleasant enough, entertaining, sure, but with a mountain of poorly hidden tension that was slowly pissing Ashton off. He didn't do this kind of shit. He would certainly never stand for it in his life.

"Is Sophie mad at me?" he blurted.

"No, she was just tired."

"Sophie wasn't tired."

"No. She wasn't," she said shortly, finishing the conversation. She still reached out and held his hand. Ashton bristled for only a moment and set to work compartmentalizing. He focused on the task at hand (aha). The task being Hannah and convincing himself that there was some strange world where they could be happy together. People would like that.

Hannah walked him to the door of the bed and breakfast. The sun was barely setting. They stood awkwardly for a moment. Fuck it, Ashton thought, which was not the most romantic thought he could have had at the moment.

He took her face in his hands, didn't really register the look of surprise on her face, and he kissed her. She kissed back. It had no passion or fire or fireworks or anything cliché the world associated with love. It was a nice kiss but no one would remember it. So it was about on par with every other kiss he'd had in his life.

He pulled away first and she put her head to his chest. He moved his hands to her back and rubbed softly, a learned technique from his films.

"I really like you," she said.

"I really like you," he echoed.

"But I don't want to date you."

Ashton paused. He practically laughed in relief but held it in.

"I do like you," she said, "and I find you attractive and you're like nice and shit, and I really tried, I tried hard because you seemed like you may be open to it, but I'm not. I have too much self-respect to pretend. And I'm really sorry if I led you on or something."

 _ _Led you on.__ Ashton almost laughed again. "I don't want to date you either."

"Oh," she said lightly. "Well, this is embarrassing."

"No, I didn't—I was going to. Ask you. I really thought I should date you because I like you and you are attractive and you are also nice and shit. I thought you were the person I needed."

"I'm not."

"You're not," he agreed. Because he thought maybe Sophie was. And then he refused to think that again.

"Fuck, though, I still want to be your friend," she said quickly.

"Oh. Okay. I mean, if I have to," he said sarcastically.

Hannah left and Ashton wandered around downstairs. He supposed he didn't want to be alone. Also a new experience for him because he thrived on solitude.

"Can I help you, love?" Calum's mum asked from the kitchen.

"No, thank you. I suppose I was looking for Calum."

"He'll be at the pub tonight."

"Right." Ashton stood uncomfortably in the doorway, not quite willing to return to his room.

"How do you like your tea?" she asked, pouring him a cup.

Tea was a habit he broke once it was clear to him that coffee was the drink of choice in LA. He hated coffee. He __despised__ coffee. But it was nearly impossible to get tea on set without being the asshole that sends a PA for it, so he slurped coffee down like everyone else, who seemed to be comprised of at least 25% coffee at any given time. He wondered if he could start a new trend back home, a tea revolution. A teavolution.

Calum's mum cleared her throat a little.

"However you like it," he said at last.

She pressed the mug into his hands and squeezed his shoulder. "Night, dear."

A thought occurred to him. "You don't happen to have Sophie Pashley's phone number, do you?"

She gestured with a smile to the emergency contact list taped to the refrigerator. Sophie's number was sloppily written toward the bottom, after the number to Calum's pub.

Ashton sat on his bed and considered his opening move, his overture, to salvage his friendship with Sophie. He couldn't think of anything good, so he stuck to what he did best. Talking about himself.

 _ _i got a really important audition, complete change of pace, opportunity of a lifetime type shit__

The response was almost immediate. Ashton smirked. **__**Scorcese?**__**

 _ _cabaret on broadway__

 _ _ **That's amazing. What part?**__

 _ _emcee. i'm losing my shit__

 _ _ **You would be brilliant.**__

 _ _I agree__

 _ _ **All class, you are.**__

 _ _it would be a huge risk. Mgmt probably not happy__

 _ _ **But you have to do it?**__

 _ _I think I really need to, deep down in my SOUL, you know. my soul__

 _ _ **You deserve everything you've ever wanted, Lou.**__

Ashton paused. __so do you__

The wait time for a response was much longer this time. Ashton began to get worried.

 _ _ **You're going to regret giving me your number.**__

 _ _oh yeah?__

 _ _ **I can see the bathroom stalls now. 'For a just all right time, call…'**__

 _ _fuck off Pashley. The bathroom stall door swings both ways__

 _ _well not like usually but in this case metaphorically it does__

 _ _what i'm trying to say is watch yourself__

 _ _ **fuck off, night ash x**__

 _ _night love__

Ashton paused and then added an x of his own.


	6. Chapter 6

Hannah and Sophie were lucky enough to be on the same shift that day, though they were sure they could thank their co-workers and Paul for the sudden shifting of schedules. They started early, running quickly into the store away from the one guy with the camera who seemed to just now live in the parking lot of the Tesco.

"What do you think of Ashton?" Hannah said as casually as she could as they cleaned down the counter. They had sort of avoided anything to do with the subject of Ashton Irwin in their rare times alone this week. Sophie wasn't sure why Hannah didn't talk about it, but Sophie didn't say anything because she never wanted to step on their toes. He already felt bad enough about the amount of time she spent third-wheeling them. She didn't regret it of course, but she always wondered if maybe they did and were too kind to say.

"I think Ashton is brilliant. Sort of like how I expected him, but then not at all how I expected him. But in a good way."

"Good," Hannah said and planted a kiss to Sophie's cheek. "That is a very accurate way of describing him."

"I've had a lot of time to think about it."

"What else do you think?"

 _ _Mostly I think about kissing him__ , Sophie did not say. She also thought a lot about their Ashton, the relaxed Ashton, the Ashton who didn't have any fronts or practiced answers. The Ashton who chose simple t-shirts and jeans and Vans over the expensive coats he was always photographed in. Ashton in his natural habitat, perhaps.

"I guess I worry about him," Sophie did say.

Hannah frowned and Sophie wondered how many of the things Ashton shared with him were also shared with Hannah. "Why?"

"I don't know. Ashton's not, like, fragile or anything. He knows what he's doing. He certainly doesn't need me worrying. I guess it's because I care. So. I don't know." Sophie shrugged and laughed and Hannah nodded and gave an appeasing smile. "I like Ashton."

"I like him too," Hannah said with affection. "We will probably keep him once he's house broken."

"He already comes when you call his name. I feel like he's almost ready for fetch."

"He will slowly murder us if he knew we were talking about him like a dog." Hannah paused. "Well. Slowly murder me, more like."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, Sophie, you're too pretty to die." She tugged on a curl and Sophie narrowed her eyes and slapped flour onto her face in retaliation.

Although they had planned to meet with him after work, Ashton showed up at the Tesco shortly after lunch. Sophie probably shouldn't have said his name three times in quick succession, Ashton was summoned so readily.

"What are you doing here?" Hannah asked, all tact.

"I got bored. So terribly bored," Ashton sighed, leaning against the counter. "And now I'm going to get you in as much trouble as I can manage. Simply because I lack entertainment."

"If we had known you were coming this week, we would have asked for time off," Hannah chastised and Sophie nodded seriously, noting the use of __we__ and not __I__.

Ashton made a silly face, let himself behind the counter, and gamely pulled on a hairnet.

"You are going to cause mass hysteria here. Again," Hannah said. "The way these people act, you'd think we're harboring the bloody Prince of Wales. We have actual work to do. Soph?"

"I'm baking a birthday cake," Sophie said, pulling Ashton by the hand to the back counter. "You may help, but only if you solemnly swear to do exactly as I say."

"It is an honor and a privilege to study under the world's foremost baker of birthday cakes," Ashton said with a flourished bow.

"I wouldn't go that far. But it is Jay's birthday and he will have the best possible birthday cake imaginable."

"Who's Jay?" Ashton shifted a little on his feet.

Sophie fancied the idea of a little jealousy brewing behind Ashton' eyes. But that was purely her imagination. "Dunno. But it's his sixteenth birthday and he's got a thing for __Breaking Bad__ , bless. I don't know how I feel about a blue meth-themed birthday cake, but y'know." Sophie shrugged and Ashton cackled. __Cackled__. Obscene.

"That's __brilliant.__ I just finished the last season three weeks ago."

Sophie narrowed her eyes. "So movies are off-limits, but you've seen every episode of __Breaking Bad__?"

"Of course I have, Sophie, I'm not an __animal__."

Hannah handled any customers as the two worked diligently. Ashton took direction as earnestly as he could, which surprised Sophie a little. The promise of mischief faded away, she supposed, in favor of respect for Sophie's job. Sophie appreciated it. She was happy.

"How's the batter coming along?"

"Looks a bit dodgy." Ashton pursed his lips at the blue liquid.

"All I've asked you to do is whisk it, how can you have possibly ruined it?"

"We all have our particular set of skills, Harold."

"Well, you're not wrong."

"Kindly fuck off."

Sophie glanced into Ashton' bowl. "Throw it out," Sophie growled, doing his best Walter White.

"What?"

"The consistency is all wrong. Anything less than perfect is useless."

"Sophie. Honestly. I think it'll be fine." Ashton looked concerned, and Sophie almost dropped it then. But she couldn't resist.

"I have a reputation to uphold. My cakes are chemically pure, no cutting corners. __I am the one who bakes.__ "

Ashton stared for a moment and then gave a tight smile and rolled his eyes, an action Sophie now associated with affection. "Oh, you're doing Heisenberg, I get it, I get it."

"You looked scared for a second there. You definitely thought I was upset. This is __delightful__."

"No, I didn't," Ashton said primly, whisking the batter a little harder than necessary.

Hannah cleared her throat behind them. "Far be it from me to disrupt the old married couple, but Soph, Paul needs to talk about Founder's Day."

Old married couple. Sophie wouldn't look at Ashton.

Sophie quickly guided Ashton through pouring the cake batter into the pan and setting up the oven to cook. When he concluded his discussion over the logistics of his booth at Founder's Day, the cake was nearly done. Ashton messed about with Hannah at the front counter as the cake cooled. A few people had noticed Ashton' presence-it was hard not to, he just __shone__ like a __beacon__ and Sophie was __sappy__ and it was starting to get __pathetic__ —and soon enough a gaggle of young girls had found their way into the store, attempting to talk to them as they feigned interest in cookies and loaves of bread.

"Sophie," Ashton called over his shoulder as Sophie walked back into the bakery area. "Do you have any idea why five separate girls have offered me bags of brocolli today?"

"I might have said something to a couple of the girls yesterday about you __really__ liking carrots."

"How do you know whether or not I __really__ like carrots?"

"I don't." Sophie smirked and Ashton narrowed his eyes.

Sophie stole Ashton away from Hannah to test out some of the icing decoration tools as Sophie practiced drawing men in yellow hazmat suits and gas masks. Ashton wrote obscene comments in shaky lettering on the pieces of cardboard Sophie used for practice. Sophie ran a finger through a particularly offensive one, scooping up some of the icing, and popping it into her mouth.

"How did you get into acting?" Sophie asked as they carefully spread the base layer of icing over the cooled cake.

"I was always something of a performer growing up. My mum worked in television sometimes, so she would bring me along. I got little gigs as an extra before doing adverts and a couple of minor roles in some truly terrible dramas. I never really took it seriously until I started doing plays in school and my mum got me in touch with an agent and I started branching out."

"What brought you to America?"

"There was this weird little competition show that I got into when I was sixteen. They were trying to jump start a new show about teenagers, some __Skins__ derivative, really, by letting Britain vote on the cast. It didn't work out really, they cancelled the show before we had even filmed enough episodes to air. But one of the producers liked me and set me up with a new agent and my management company and a startlingly thorough contract and the next thing I knew, I was leaving behind the girls and my home and everything I knew to move to Los Angeles to work on __Vapor__." He spoke sort of uncomfortably, his eyes glued to the blue rock candy he was smashing up and sprinkling on top of the cake.

"I used to watch that show. It was good."

"Thanks," Ashton said, though it didn't feel like his heart was in it.

"It's no __Friends__ though."

"Well, you're not wrong," Ashton mocked.

Sophie thought back on the show. "You had a catchphrase, didn't you?"

"Oh, god, don't. Please. I've only just stopped getting people saying it to me on the streets."

"I am going to remember it. Any second now."

"Don't you dare. I will murder you if you say it aloud."

"What __was it__?"

Ashton approached her and grabbed her playfully around the neck. "Hold still, Pashley, I am attempting murder."

"Okay, okay, uncle." Sophie bobbed out of Ashton' reach quickly with a giggle. A fucking __giggle__. They settled into a sort of quiet. "Was your mum okay with you doing all of this?"

Ashton paused. "Yes and no. she was proud of me and she wanted me to follow my dreams and all that shit. But I think she sort of regrets how quickly I had to grow up to survive."

Sophie paused. "Were __you__ okay with doing all of this?"

Ashton gave a tight smile. "I didn't really think about it." It seemed like that conversation was over.

Sophie wrote Jay's cake inscription in ironically flowery lettering: _ _Happy birthday, bitch.__

Just before they left for the day, Ashton pulled her aside. He smiled hesitantly, which made Sophie smile brightly. "I couldn't sleep last night, so I was doing a bit of reading. And I noticed the other day about your room and the walls. It's. Well. Here. I thought this would fit."

Sophie was not used to the flustering Ashton Irwin. It was charming but also worrying. Sophie took the proffered small piece of paper and read the carefully written inscription.

 _"_ _ _Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable, let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all." – Douglas Adams__

Sophie definitely wasn't about to cry or anything like that. "It's perfect. I love Douglas Adams," she said softly.

"Great," Ashton said abruptly and strode over to Hannah. Sophie tucked the piece of paper carefully into her bag.

She liked having Ashton in the kitchen, as stressful as it was. It was a special thing, almost like letting Ashton see her at home. Well, Ashton had seen Sophie at home, and he had seen Sophie cook for him. But not with him. This was something different. It felt intimate. It was all trust and co-habitation and bumping hips and pressing a kiss to his cheek when the cake was finalized and perfect.

Sophie knew what the plans were for the late afternoon, once they got off at four. She had let spill Ashton' exciting news to Hannah and she had devised a cunning plan to practically force Ashton into letting them see him where he was at home. She only hoped it wasn't asking too much.

Ashton tried to ignore the paparazzi stationed in the car park, using their long lenses because their manager Paul had threatened them with the police if they crowded the entrance like they used to. He had never known paparazzi to clear off at the threat of the police. He wondered how scary Paul was. It was frustrating, as if truly __fascinating__ and _ _newsworthy__ things happened at a shop that were worth photographing. He ushered the two with possessive hands on their backs toward their car and told them to keep their heads down. This was private time.

Ashton wasn't sure where they were driving, and he didn't trust them at all. They were all devious smirks and vague comments and questions like __are you dressed comfortably.__

Hannah pulled into a car park for a dance studio and Ashton' stomach fell.

"What is this?"

"A dance studio," Hannah said lightly.

"No shit."

"You didn't tell me about __Cabaret__ first, you shit, so now you're going to make it up to me."

Ashton groaned repeatedly, like an __adult__ , but followed them until Hannah had charmed her way into securing a small rehearsal space on the second floor of the dance studio.

"Give us a show, then," Hannah said expectantly.

Ashton glanced at Sophie, looking for sympathy. What he found was a shit-eating grin and a supportive thumbs up. "I hate you both."

"No, you don't," they said simultaneously. Ashton wondered if they practiced.

"Sing us a song," Sophie prompted.

"No, thank you."

"If you can't sing in front of us, how are you going to audition for this show?"

"Telepathy. And also telling them I'd do it for free. Artists who are also producers, they __pretend__ like the money doesn't matter, but budgets always take precedence."

Sophie scowled. "Ashton, this is serious."

"When was the last time you actually had to audition for something?" Hannah asked, and she had a point. Nowadays people just called up his agent and offered him roles. He screen tested every once in a while, but that was very different from an audition.

"You know what we're like at home. Show us what you're like at home," Sophie said.

"I'm not taking you to LA."

"You're at home when you perform," Sophie said, not a question but a statement, a true statement and it burned deep into Ashton' core.

Ashton stared for a moment at the curls and the frown and the earnestness and it was too fucking __much__. "Sing with me."

"I won't be there with you."

Ashton sighed exasperated. "This is an ambush. I'm not just going to perform for you. This is my __craft__ , people pay me mil—lots of money to perform. How will you pay me?"

"With an infinite amount of the chicken thing."

"Deal," Ashton said instantly because that changed things.

Hannah scowled then. "What is the chicken thing?"

"Nothing," Sophie and Ashton said simultaneously.

"I need to prepare. Thirty minutes tops. Get out of the room."

Sophie and Hannah rose. Ashton caught Sophie by the arm as Hannah left unknowingly.

"I'm nervous," Ashton said quickly before he could think better of it.

"Oh. Shit. You don't have to do it, we didn't mean to pressure you, Ash. We just thought it would be fun." Sophie grabbed his hands for the second time that day and Ashton kind of wanted to die. "I love to hear you sing."

"No, it's fine. I'll. I don't get stage fright, this is ridiculous." Ashton laughed but it didn't sound right. What the fuck was wrong with him? He didn't let go of Sophie's hands. "I think, like, I worry about what you are going to think," he said. __I want you to be proud of me__ , he did not say.

Sophie smiled and squeezed Ashton' hands. "So far, you have proven yourself incapable of underwhelming or disappointing me. And I want you to be more concerned with making yourself happy with your work."

"Get out this instant," Ashton said with a smile and shoved Sophie out the door because he had done enough feeling for the day. He had done a particularly large amount of feeling after Sophie had decided to start licking icing from his own fingers, which was, quite frankly, highly unsanitary. He should probably have informed the manager of a health code violation. Sophie probably would have smiled her way out of trouble, the fucker.

When Sophie and Hannah returned, Ashton instructed them that they would be part of the performance as punishment for their betrayal.

"What do we have to do?" Hannah said warily.

"This will be an exercise in improvisation." Ashton set up the karaoke track he had found on YouTube and plugged his phone into the speaker system in the corner of the room. "Don't be scared. Do you trust me?"

Hannah nodded quickly. Sophie quirked her eyebrows up but said nothing.

The opening electric guitar riffs of the song, "I'm Alive" from __Next to Normal__ , seemed to startle his scene-mates. Ashton dropped his face into a mischievous grin, which also drew surprised looks from the two. He had chosen this song specifically because it was both charming and terrifying. He approached them slowly, singing carefully.

 _ _I'm what you want me to be, and I'm your worst fear, you'll find it in me.__

Hannah took a careful breath as Ashton wrapped his arms around her stomach and sung almost into her neck. __Come closer. Come closer.__

He pulled away from her and rounded on Sophie, who watched with wide eyes.

 _ _I'm more than memory, I am what might be, I am mystery.__

He yanked at Sophie's hand and spun her around mockingly. __You know me. So show me.__

The song picked up, and Ashton sang confidently, strutting around and using his people as props like the character Gabe would, the two of them sort of appropriately bewildered but still sort of game to play along. He grabbed Hannah and led her in a quick dance, holding her close and maneuvering her confidently, before spinning her off and pulling Sophie by the hands to the mirror lining one of the walls. He was tall enough to look comfortably over Sophie's shoulder and find her eyes in the mirror.

 _ _I'm your wish, your dream come true, and I am your darkest nightmare too. I've shown you. I own you.__

Sophie blinked slowly but Ashton didn't focus on it. His mind was on the song, on the scene, on his performance.

Ashton belted through the end of the song, a mountain of __I'm alive__ 's repeating furiously. At some point he closed his eyes in concentration, which was cliché and a habit he needed to break immediately. But when he pulled himself out of the performance, he found Hannah beaming and Sophie breathing carefully.

"Holy shit," Sophie said softly.

"That was amazing," Hannah said confidently.

"Yeah?" Ashton smiled.

"You have to sing that. Every day. For the rest of your life," Sophie said.

"I'm going for __Cabaret__ , love, I don't think they'll be willing to put that song in." Ashton was wary of how careful Sophie was speaking.

"I don't care. Put that song in everything," Hannah agreed.

"What did you think? I'm an actor. Stroke my ego. Give me adjectives."

"It was brilliant."

"Charismatic," Sophie supplied.

"Like. Sexy."

Sophie made a noise of agreement. "Dangerous."

Ashton stared at Sophie for a moment longer than necessary. Thankfully Hannah came to the rescue. "Dancing! We must now dance. I have taken the liberty of choreographing a number for you both. If you would please stand here."

"Absolutely not, never again," Sophie said petulantly.

"This double standard regarding embarrassment is particularly egregious, Sophie. I'm dancing, you're dancing." Ashton yanked Sophie closer.

Hannah's choreography was impossible to follow, and the exercise ended up devolving into chaos. All Sophie was capable of was jumping around and flailing, in addition to the limited amount of moves she learned from __The Breakfast Club__. Ashton led her around in some choice moves from __Grease__ , but when Hannah couldn't contain her laughter, Sophie's face burned red and she declined to dance further. Ashton contained his irritation, but only just so.

"Oh, come on, Soph, you were per- _ _fect__ ," Hannah said, hanging onto the arm of a still pouty Sophie as they walked home.

Ashton quickly asserted his agreement. Sophie smiled a little then, playfully shoving at both of them.

Sophie then leaned up to Ashton' ear and said quietly, "As a special reward for you, it's the chicken thing for dinner. Wanna help?"

Ashton shuddered.

Sophie allowed Ashton to wear one of his headbands, though Ashton probably would have taken one without permission. Sophie chased Hannah from the stove and she sat on the loveseat with a huff and shouted, "Fine, you may prepare dinner without my help, peasants."

"Cooking is at its very core about following instructions," Sophie said seriously, with her hands behind her back and her back straight. "Only once you understand the instructions and why they're there can you improvise. This is going to be harder than a cake and I'm going to give you more responsibility because I believe you can handle it. Can you follow instructions?"

"My schoolteachers always said I had __an issue with authority figures__."

"Do you have an issue with me as an authority figure?" Sophie quirked an eyebrow.

"You've bossed me around enough today, I think we're going to go with no."

Sophie flipped on her iPod, carefully removed her bracelets and rings, and set Ashton up peeling potatoes for the mash. Ashton waited impatiently for Sophie to begin singing before joining him. Everything was comfortable.

Ashton felt he needed to be glued to Sophie, which he wondered if it had to do with feeling finally free from obligation to Hannah. He would sit a little too close or find reasons to place a hand to guide her places, though Sophie definitely knew better than Ashton where he was going. He found reasons to be side-by-side with Sophie when they cooked together. When they crammed onto the litchen loveseat after dinner, Ashton threw his legs over Sophie's lap and Sophie's hands had settled easily on top of them.

It was an odd and infuriating development and Ashton couldn't bring himself to hate it.


	7. Chapter 7

Sophie was awake at four am Saturday morning to bake herself silly at the Tesco with Paul to use their larger ovens. The festival was to last all weekend and she didn't want to do any more baking after the show got started. So she told himself.

The real truth is she was up all night thinking about Ashton and the quiet, sad things he said in confidence that made her worry. She shouldn't worry about Ashton, she knew nothing about Ashton. Ashton had seemed to approach his life with self-awareness, with complete acknowledgment that everything about his life was absurd. Ashton didn't want or need Sophie's pity and Sophie hoped his empathy was not confused for pity. These were the things he couldn't tell Hannah.

And that __song__ that set her pulse racing and her heart on fire. To see Ashton in his element, to be a part of it. It was exactly that combination of terror and exhilaration that Ashton had described. She would let Ashton sing to her every day. Because it was the single sexiest thing on the __planet__.

Once she dragged himself out of bed, she solemnly swore to put all such thoughts of Ashton Irwin and all that touching from yesterday that definitely did __not__ go un-noticed by Sophie, behind her. She wrapped up his hair, rolled up the sleeves of her jumper, and went to work.

She left Tesco's with Paul some hours later to set up the Sophie's Corner section of the festival. Sophie was having a delightful day. She didn't stray away from her tent, but she was in perfect position to see the small stage where local bands and groups of little kid dancers performed. She could see other vendors, from in town and from neighboring towns, a small petting zoo with goats and a miniature horse, a bouncy castle, and a dunk tank that it was far too cold for.

She was amazed at what her town had done in so short notice. It wasn't much, probably, to any other sort of town fair, but it was lovely.

She was recognized by a few young girls twice in the day, local girls who knew she was Hannah's best friend. They asked her if she'd met Ashton Irwin and what he was like. Sophie answered with innocuous responses like, "Loud. Just really loud."

Sophie was cleaning up nicely, turning a tidy profit during a lunch rush. She chatted easily and happily with every patron, which, after the baking, was one of the best perks of her job. She was enjoying a small break and munching on fresh popped kettle corn from a few booths away. She ate standing, sort of bouncing around, unable to contain her good mood energy. A short man with a serious expression approached the table and surveyed the goods appraisingly.

"What's the best you've got?" he said to Paul, who had walked up to assist him.

"Everything. Not an exaggeration," Paul said and Sophie felt her cheeks go pink.

The man plucked quite a few choices from the mix, all diverse, and ate them as soon as he paid for them, taking a moment to consider the taste. Sophie tried not to watch so openly for the man's response.

"Are you Sophie then?" he asked her.

"Yes." Sophie scrambled up to the man, who firmly shook her hand and handed her a card.

"I'm Simon, I'm chief baker at Espressoself," he said, confirming what Sophie read on the card. Espressoself, a bold pun-Sophie had always appreciated it. They were a big chain of coffee and tea shops around the UK and Sophie had heard they recently branched out into New York.

Sophie nodded. "I'm Sophie, I'm bakery lead at Tesco."

Simon smiled. "We're expanding our brand to encompass more pastries and the like to complement our beverages. I like your work. We hold fellowships in London," he said all businesslike and not as if he was saying the most wonderful things in the world. "Give us a ring if you're interested, yes?"

Sophie stared dumbfounded as the man walked away without waiting for a response. Paul snapped her out of it with a strong clap to the back.

"Well done, Sophie!" he shouted. "Taking a break, back in 10?"

Sophie immediately wanted to tell Ashton. She was honestly surprised she had yet to see him that day. Sophie slipped the business card into her purse.

"I recognize you," a voice behind Sophie said.

"Sorry?" Sophie replied.

"From Twitter. You're Sophie Pashley," the man said.

Sophie didn't have a Twitter and she informed the man as such.

"Ashton Irwin does, though," the man said with a grin.

"Would you like to sample something?" Sophie said, anxious upon hearing his name.

"Can I ask you some questions about Ashton?"

"No, thank you."

"Are you close to him?"

"I really can't—"

"What about Hannah?"

"I'm sorry, please—"

"Is she fucking him?"

"Excuse me?"

"Are you fucking him?"

"What?" Sophie's face flared up with heat.

"You seem more like his type."

"Please leave," Sophie breathed. He saw the man's mobile phone was recording them and he refused to say anything more.

"Oh, come on, Sophie. Give us a little, we'll put you on the front page of __The Daily Mail__ and every television in Britain."

Sophie was having difficulty breathing.

"What's he like, Sophie? Don't be shy, Sophie. Who are you to them, Sophie? You're always around them. I'm just concerned for your well-being. Ashton doesn't treat his girls with very much respect. We're all worried for Hannah. And for you."

Sophie was practically paralyzed, rooted to the spot, overwhelmed with terror and anger and anxiety every time the man used her name.

"She seemed to give it up for him pretty quickly, didn't she? Does she always give it up that quickly? What about you, Sophie? Talk to us about Ashton. You realize his relationship with Hannah is a lie. It's all a publicity stunt. Ashton is manipulating you, how do you feel about that?"

Sophie surged with anger. Suddenly she was practically shoved aside by Ashton, who forced himself in front of Sophie.

"Don't you fucking talk to her, don't you dare fucking talk to her," Ashton snarled. Sophie's eyes shot to the floor.

"We were just chatting," the pap said easily.

"No. You shits can come after me, but you leave her alone. You leave all of them alone. Or I'll break your fingers. Get the fuck out of here."

"You didn't mind, right, Sophie?"

Ashton lobbed a punch and connected with the side of the paparazzo's face. Sophie thought she couldn't sink deeper into shock. " _ _You don't get to say her name__."

"What's going on?" Hannah said, pushing through the small camera phone-toting crowd that had formed around the booth.

"This bastard is leaving," Ashton spat as the man collected his phone from where it fell.

"What a douchebag," the pap said as he walked away.

Ashton grabbed Sophie's hands and led her to the area behind the tent where no one could see them. Sophie followed in a daze.

"Don't even think about him," Ashton said, pulling Sophie in for a hug.

"He said such terrible things," Sophie mumbled.

"Don't tell me what he said, I'll probably just make good on my threat and break his fucking fingers."

She was having difficulty finding the words. "How can he say things about a person? You're just a human being. And Hannah."

"People like reading humiliating things about strangers, Sophie. It's a cruel fact of life. Never believe them. I'm so sorry to have put you through this."

Sophie shook her head. "Don't worry about it." She began to put it to the back of his mind. She reached out to find things she was enthusiastic about. The care in Ashton' eyes. Her food was selling. It was a beautiful day. She was proud of her town. She had done well. She found her wide smile. Ashton looked concerned still, unconvinced by the smile.

Either way, Ashton put a hand gently to Sophie's back and guided her to where Hannah and Paul stood, frowning and talking at each other.

"Sophie, what's happened?" Paul asked.

"Some dick was harassing her; I took care of it." Ashton waved it off. His eyes fell on some cupcakes on the ground that the pap had knocked off the table. He picked them up. "I should pay for these."

"Ash," Sophie said quietly.

"Now you won't get to sell them."

"It's fine."

"I'll pay for them, this is your livelihood."

"Stop," Sophie snapped. "I don't want your money."

Ashton blinked slowly before his face immediately fell into that goddamn passive mask. "Fine."

Sophie put a hand through the back of her hair. "I didn't mean it like that."

"If you'll excuse me, I need something deep fried on a stick." Ashton turned quickly and stormed away.

"Take a break," Hannah said immediately, turning on Sophie.

"What?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yes…?"

"Great. I love you. Paul and I have got this. Take a break, Soph." She dropped a kiss on her cheek and spun her around.

Sophie didn't run but she walked with purpose toward where she had seen Ashton disappeared to. He had already put on his sunglasses and his beanie and was utilizing his low profile behavior. Luckily Sophie would know him anywhere.

Ashton dragged his fingers through a few wind chimes at a vendor booth. "I'm not apologizing," he said, not looking up.

"Neither am I," Sophie said. They stood in silence.

"I couldn't find any corndogs."

"I think there's a fish and chips thing going on over there."

They walked closely, shoulders touching, reminding Sophie once again of why she was supposed to stay far away from him. It had gotten especially worse since yesterday. But Sophie couldn't quite decide whether she cared anymore.

"So. __Cabaret__. Feeling any better about it?"

"I'm waffling between elated and terrified."

"You are going to be the second best Emcee Broadway has ever seen."

Ashton threw her a look over his chips that was mostly masked by his sunglasses. "If I get it."

"You'll get it."

"Ring up the casting director, then, Sophie Pashley says it's a yes!" He stopped, his gaze catching behind her. "Is that Calum in a dunk tank?"

"It would not surprise me at all," Sophie said, craning her neck to indeed confirm one half-naked Calum Hood was seated neglected in the dunk tank, kicking his legs above the water and daring people to send him in.

Ashton smiled mischievously and shot over to the tank, leaving Sophie to deal with the food

"Oh, __Jesus__ ," Calum croaked at the dunk tank attendant. "Don't you let __him__ play."

"Why ever not?" Ashton pouted.

"Because you'll put me in the drink, you prick!"

"That's the whole point."

" _ _No__ , the whole point is to collect money for charity by banking on people's inability to hit a football at a very small target."

"I'm warmed up from the other day," Ashton said, jumping to psych himself up. "How much money have you made today?"

"Seven quid," said the bored attendant, who was leaned up against the wooden flat that had a goal painted on it and a small red button in the middle to trigger the dunk.

"Here's twenty quid, but I'll only need the one ball," Ashton said, handing Sophie his hat and sunglasses. Sophie pocketed the hat and slipped on the sunglasses. She was delighted by this turn of events.

Sophie was even more delighted at the stifled scream and look of terror as Calum's seat dropped him. Ashton threw his hands up and took a ridiculous victory lap, shouting, "Gooooal!" He crashed into Sophie, who hugged him tight before letting go. Just because she could.

Sophie tried not to count the number of happy crinkles in Ashton' eyes as they formed with his grin. Calum was whooping and splashing gamely in the water before climbing up the ladder and out of the tank. He shivered as he wrapped himself in a towel. "Freezing as shit," he chattered.

"What are you raising money for?" Sophie asked.

"Primary school needs more band instruments," Calum said. "I teach the guitar class," he explained to Ashton.

"Ah shit, I really wish you hadn't said it was for kids," Ashton said, pursing his lips as his eyebrows drew together and Sophie's drew up.

"Why?"

"Because now I have to fucking do something about it, don't I?" he shouted at them as he backed away into the crowd.

Sophie didn't watch him, but turned to Calum. "The single greatest regret of my life is not getting a video of that. I'd have made a ten minute loop and put it on YouTube." Sophie demonstrated Calum's shriek and look of terror.

"That good, huh?" Calum said with a big grin.

" _ _Priceless__. Did you bring a robe or something?"

Suddenly Ashton Irwin's voice flooded the loudspeaker. "Hello, Holmes Chapel, it is a pleasure to meet almost all of you at once. I am Ashton Irwin, happy Founders Day." The crowd over by the stage cheered up at him. "At the top of the hour, in precisely… seventeen minutes, I will be at that dunk tank over __there__ by the shivering man and everyone's favorite baker. You will have one hour to dunk me as many times as you can. And for every dunking I get, I will donate 100 pounds to the cause and you can take a humiliating picture with me. Sounds good?" More cheering. "Sophie, love, I know you're listening. You have seventeen minutes to find me a pair of swim trunks. See you guys then."

Sophie felt like she had been hit by a train. A giant train of affection. She was annoyed by it. And she liked it.

Either way, she set off running like it was going out of style. She found a pair of swim trunks in sixteen minutes.

The sun was shining but there was a light breeze as Ashton sat shirtless on the dunk tank seat and regretted all of the life decisions that had led up this moment. So far, he had to donate about £1,400 to the cause. Sophie had choked on her laughter the first time Ashton went under. She said Ashton looked like a traumatized wet cat as he climbed frantically out of the water.

Sophie jumped around by the goal, unable to keep still as she cheered every single player on. She screamed and clapped harder than everyone every time a goal was struck. Fucker. Ashton didn't like that Sophie's bright eyes were obscured by sunglasses, as much as he liked seeing Sophie wear them.

Ashton stayed in the tank long past the hour he promised until everyone had their turn. At long last alone, Sophie picked up a football and tossed it from hand to hand. She gave the attendant some money.

"Football with your feet. __Foot__ ball, Sophie."

Sophie smiled and said nothing, dropping the ball and pulling the sunglasses up to sit on her fringe. She took a ridiculous running start and kicked the ball far over the tank and into the crowd in the distance. Sophie's eyes widened and her mouth fell open. And Ashton couldn't stop laughing. Calum was doubled over as well.

"I'll get it," the attendant said glumly and sauntered away.

"You're laughing at me," Sophie said with narrowed eyes.

"It's a common human response to things that are __fucking hilarious__ ," Ashton said between giggles.

Sophie's face was an emotionless mask as she fixed her eyes on Ashton' and wouldn't look away, even as she began to move. It only took a few seconds for Ashton to realize what was happening. "Don't you dare," he shouted. Sophie maintained eye contact and silence as she pressed one finger to the button and sent Ashton down into the water for the fifteenth time that afternoon.

"You. Absolute. Shit," Ashton gasped, though he was happy to see the grin return to Sophie's face. He was climbing out when Sophie said, "Hold on, don't I get my picture?"

Sophie handed Calum her phone and took her place by the dunk tank. Ashton bounced over to the edge of the tank and mouthed, "Video," to Calum, who smiled and pressed a few buttons.

"Everybody say Sophie's a cheat on three, one two three," Calum announced.

Ashton did as much as he could to send a wave of water over the edge to drench Sophie, who sputtered and was paralyzed in shock. She shook out her hair and threw an amused glare at Ashton, who figured his job was done.

"Cut, print, check the gate, thank you, Calum, please text that to me instantly," Ashton said and Calum handed Sophie's phone back to her after dutifully sending the video.

Sophie snapped at Calum, "Traitor."

"Worth it," Calum said and ran off, possibly fearing retribution.

"Okay then," Ashton breathed and went to change his clothes. He quickly tweeted the video of Sophie's dousing, thanking the good people of Holmes Chapel for an excellent day.

The festival was wrapping up, venders were covering their items for the next day, and Hannah was waiting for them when they made it back to Sophie's Corner at last.

"Heard you made quite a __splash__ ," Hannah said with wide eyes. Ashton thought she had been patiently waiting to unload the pun for quite some time.

Sophie tackled her in a hug. "God, Sophie, you're getting me wet," she said, ducking out of the way. "Out of the gutter, Pashley." She put up a warning finger at the start of her mischievous smirk.

"What do you mean?" Sophie said, pulling a stupidly innocent face and kissed her cheek.

Ashton felt a surge of affection for the idiots for literally no good reason at all.

"You two are going home to shower and change, and then we're going bowling," she announced, kissing each of their cheeks. "No trip to a tragically small town is complete without a cutesy trip to either the movies or a bowling alley. Popular culture has deemed it so."

"Bowling?" Ashton said skeptically.

"The cinema is playing a marathon of all your films," she explained.

"Bowling! I love bowling. Let us bowl," Ashton said.

Sophie smiled and hummed pleasantly driving the car to the bowling alley. Ashton sort of wanted to jabber on to fill the silence, but he began to enjoy that they could sit comfortable and just be with each other. He had left his Public Outing Armor on Sophie's bed.

"It was a good day," Sophie said softly, maybe more to herself.

"Take me through it," Ashton answered.

"I got up and baked a lot of stuff. I talked to a lot of people, met a lot of new people. They liked my food, which is great, because I do it for them. For everyone. If they like it, if one cupcake makes two minutes of their day great, then it's all worth it."

Ashton glanced at the smiling girl. "You're not normal."

Sophie groaned, long and loud.

"What?" Ashton retorted.

"Define what you think a normal person is."

Ashton hesitated. "Well, now I don't want to."

"Why not?"

"Because then I'll sound like an idiot."

"Too late."

"Fuck off." Ashton narrowed his eyes and fumed, staring out the window, even though he knew Sophie was kind of joking.

"Normal means nothing. I'm not any different from you. Because being an individual—which is, by the way, what you meant when you said not normal—is the standard. You're normal, I'm normal. Capital N __Normal__ , the label we give each other, it's an illusion and a lie we tell ourselves to scare us into complacency."

"Yeah, I thought you'd say some pretentious shit like that."

"Now it's your turn to fuck off." Sophie bristled.

"Is complacency now something you're willing to rail against?"

Sophie walled up startlingly fast and Ashton regretted it instantly. Ashton didn't like when Sophie put up walls; Sophie was so expressive and it was one of the things Ashton liked most about her. Ashton almost berated himself, like it was a conscious __decision__ on his part to piss Sophie off at least once a day. He was working out an appropriate response when Sophie beat him to it.

"You sent Simon, didn't you?" she said quietly.

"What?" Ashton said, to buy himself more time.

"The guy from Espressoself. I knew it was too good to be true." Sophie sounded… disappointed? Sad? Not angry.

"I did call them, but their bakery guy is honest and brutal and if he said he liked your stuff, then he did," Ashton said carefully.

"I wish you hadn't done that," Sophie responded tightly.

Ashton' face burned in frustration. "Why not?"

"How am I supposed to know if I deserve a job on my own merits if everybody has to run the risk of pissing off Ashton Irwin?"

Ashton' eyes narrowed quickly. "Don't put yourself down," he barked. "You are brilliant and you deserve the world and you're an even bigger idiot than I previously thought if you turn down an opportunity you are worthy of just because I know some people and I want them to see in you what I see in you. Talent. Potential."

Sophie seemed to soften but said nothing until they pulled into the bowling alley parking lot. Ashton wasn't sure why he felt he needed to do everything and anything in the world for this kid if she was going to be ungrateful about it. It would hit Sophie like a goddamn ton of bricks the day she finds out that talent isn't enough to succeed. As frustrating as it may be, knowing the right people is equally important.

"I am truly shit at bowling," Ashton confessed.

"Don't put yourself down," Sophie mocked, which prompted Ashton to make an obscene gesture inappropriate for the family friendly environment.

"I haven't been bowling in… ever? I think I did some bowling for a movie once."

"You did?"

"Yeah. I can't remember what it was called, though. One of the early ones, when I was a kid."

Sophie gave a small smile. "I wonder what it was."

Ashton narrowed his eyes. "You know what it's called, don't you?" he guessed.

"Permanent Vacation _ _.__ "

"How many times have you seen it?"

"Seven."

"You little shit! You said all those DVDs belonged to Hannah."

"They do. But you know we share everything."

"You're a __fan__ ," Ashton breathed, delighted. "And here I thought you were too good for me."

"Never," Sophie said quietly and inadvertently stopped Ashton' heart. "Hannah isn't here," she said, frowning as she scanned the lanes.

Ashton' phone rang. "Oh, here we are," he showed Sophie the caller ID before answering.

"By now, you will have noticed that I am indeed not at the bowling alley."

"Yes," Ashton said carefully.

"I am fulfilling yet another romantic comedy trope for you, Ashton, my dear."

"What is that?"

"The one where I set you up on a date by abandoning you with the girl you have a crush on, dumdum."

"Hannah," Ashton said strangled as his heart began to race.

"You were there that night I was sick. It wasn't a dream."

"Yes," he squeezed out. A date. A date.

"And you spent all night with Sophie. You like her."

"Of course I do," Ashton snapped.

"But you __like-like__ Sophie, don't you? You guys give each other the sickest googly eyes. I've been watching you for days."

"What are you, fucking eleven?"

"Twelve."

"What gives you the right?" Ashton practically shouted and then felt a hand on his shoulder. He glared up at Sophie, whose face was pulled into a concerned frown, with the Ashton Wrinkle between the eyebrows making another appearance.

He wanted to kiss it away.

Fuck, was he in trouble. Goddamn Hannah.


	8. Chapter 8

Sophie wasn't sure what to say or that she should even say anything. She rubbed her thumb softly on Ashton' shoulder, hoping she wasn't going too far.

At any and every point of the last few days, Sophie wanted to kiss him. It was a problem. She tried avoiding him, being the most platonic friend around, steadily shipping Ashton and Hannah. And all of it was bullshit.

Dangerous bullshit because she couldn't pine away over this guy who by no rights could even belong to her and who could leave their lives just as quickly as he entered them.

Sophie was surprised when Ashton' face fell from anger to worry as he raised a hand and smoothed over the space between Sophie's eyebrows.

"You're not allowed an Ashton wrinkle."

"A what?" Sophie asked, but Ashton was pulled into the phone conversation and ended it quickly.

"Hannah's not coming. Let us bowl," he said, still frowning and Sophie was immediately worried.

 _ _What gives you the right__ bounced around in her head for a minute before Sophie was certain what Ashton was feeling was shame and anger for having been dumped on Sophie. She wondered what she might have done wrong.

Sophie collected their shoe rentals and some socks from a vending machine for Ashton, who didn't wear socks or even own socks, which Sophie thought was completely ridiculous and informed him as such. Ashton balked at the idea of vending machine socks ("A sign of humanity's imminent demise, that, clothing from a fucking __vending machine"__ ), but put them on anyway. Ashton had set up the board with their names.

"The Pash and The Ash," Sophie read.

Ashton' eyes lit up. "And that's the name of our band!"

Both of them were truly shit at bowling, but it was fun. Ashton eased away from his anger almost immediately, which confused Sophie yet again. But she went with it, because that's what Sophie did.

"I dare you to go bowl in their lane," Sophie said, pointing over at a small team of crusty old men at the other end of the alley. They were the same crusty old men who glared at them when they cheered too loud for gutterballs. "You're Ashton Irwin, they'll forgive you."

"Haven't we traded on my fame enough today?" Ashton said with cocked eyebrows.

"Earlier was for charity, it didn't count. Take my dare or Hannah will announce to the world via Twitter that you are a coward."

Ashton set his face into a mischievous grin, which Sophie thought was his best kind of face, except for perhaps the crinkle-eyed smile.

Ashton usurped half a frame from the crusty old men with admirable precision. He bowled a gutter ball, threw his hands up in celebration and shouted as he ran all the way back to Sophie—slipping every once in a while on the slick floor—and crashed into her. Sophie was delighted about this action for the second time that day.

They stayed for hours but only played three games, due to the serious amount of fucking around and eating of terrible bowling alley food they did.

Sophie was comfortable. And enthused. She enjoyed watching Ashton find increasingly strange and idiotic ways to roll the ball down the lane. She was happy when Ashton leaned, somewhat hesitantly, on Sophie when they took a second hotdog break. She missed Ashton when he disappeared, which is incidentally ridiculous, because like what was she planning on doing, accompanying Ashton to all future restroom trips?

A bored voice spoke over the alley. "This song is dedicated to Sophie. Welcome to Cosmic Bowling."

The lights turned off and were replaced by black lights and neon lights. "Bohemian Rhapsody" flooded the speakers as Ashton bounded back to the lane.

"I don't think I'll be able to get this bowling alley to sing with me," Sophie said from where she was seated.

"Oh good! You remember. I was worried you were too drunk."

"I wasn't that drunk. Calum thought I was pissed and tried to take advantage of me. Well, he did take advantage, technically, but I knew about it and I wanted to make him happy. He wasn't very attentive to how much I was actually drinking."

"So the slurring and the stumbling and the singing were a performance."

"Yep. You could set me up with your agent, like." Sophie smiled easy.

Ashton leaned in closely with a look on his face Sophie couldn't decipher. "And when you pulled me into your bed, were you not very drunk then either?"

Sophie froze. Ashton stared at him, eyes locked, and Sophie knew she wouldn't be saved from this.

"No. I wasn't."

"So why did you do it?"

"I needed you," she said firmly because it was the truth and it couldn't be stopped or helped.

"That's what I thought." Ashton slid into the chair next to her and began to remove his bowling shoes. "Let's go."

Sophie blinked. She said the wrong thing. "Ash."

"Let's go," Ashton said calmly. Sophie said nothing and felt the world crash around her Which was a melodramatic thought, but Sophie didn't care. She ruined everything.

She followed dumbly as Ashton led her back to the car. She put a hand on the driver's side door, but Ashton grabbed it and turned her around. __Here it comes__ , Sophie thought.

"Can I kiss you?" Ashton asked politely.

"Yes, please," Sophie said without thinking.

And they kissed. And Sophie really liked it. And Ashton was really __very__ good at it.

When they came up for air some eight years later, Sophie needed a few moments before the fog cleared in her brain. "You scared the shit out of me. I thought you were mad."

"You constantly scare the shit out of me. So." He shrugged a little.

"Romantic."

They kissed again. It was probably like fireworks.

"What about Hannah?"

"She set us up."

"Cheeky bitch."

More kissing. And leaning against the car and each other. And tugging of Sophie's hair. She didn't mind anything (especially not the hair pulling, which, okay, is now apparently a thing that __works for her__ ) because nothing was on her mind but the task at hand, and the task at hand didn't bother her at all. Even when Ashton broke apart to scowl and swear and Sophie didn't know what that meant but she didn't care and pulled the other back to crash against her again.

"Fuck," Ashton said for maybe the fourth time.

"I've had guys swear before, Ash. I know I'm really good. But they usually don't sound quite so __distressed__."

Ashton scrunched his face. "I really like you. And I particularly like kissing you."

"That's excellent news. Is that what's distressing you?"

"You really do scare me."

Sophie's face fell just a bit. "In, like, a good way…?"

"Mostly." He fixed his eyes on Sophie's collar bone. "I'm not a strong person. At least where it counts. But I feel like I could be. You make me want to be strong. I like who I am with you and I like who I am because of you. When I look at you, I feel potential, and it's terrifying and exhilarating at the same time, fuck this is really hard to do without a script. Am I—is this okay?"

"It was a little one sided, but we can work on that," Sophie said honestly, running a hand through Ashton' hair to smooth where Sophie had thoroughly ruffled it.

"You don't have any big revelations you want to share so I don't feel awkward and alone?"

"The person being romantically speeched at never has to do a speech of their own. That's just how it goes."

"Double standard," Ashton said, pressing his face into Sophie's neck.

Sophie hummed with delight. "I was probably gone for you when you sang with me in the litchen. And every moment after, I was falling even harder. And it was a problem because I thought you and Hannah… I was ashamed of myself—although apparently not __too__ ashamed because I did jump you pretty quickly—and I didn't want to hurt you or Hannah."

"Or yourself."

"Yeah, I guess myself too." The thought hadn't occurred to Sophie.

And then they were kissing again. __Honestly__.

People were coming and going from the bowling alley. Ashton threw a worried glance at them.

"Perhaps we should, just, not make out in front of the bowling alley," Sophie suggested.

"And go back to yours? Sophie, I'm not that kind of girl." Ashton feigned scandalized.

"I am," Sophie said low. Ashton' face turned to shock and not a little bit of excitement. A loud bark of laughter erupted from Sophie. " _ _The look on your face__."

Ashton immediately turned sour. "Fuck off," he said, a light smile betraying him as they got into the car.

Ashton' phone chimed a while later and he removed his hand from Sophie's to check it. "It's Luke," he announced as though Sophie was supposed to know who that is, beyond being the future recipient of one cardboard Ashton Irwin and someone Ashton talks about constantly making upset. Ashton stiffened as he read the text and began working away at his phone.

"Fuck," he said softly. Sophie looked over but couldn't see what was on the screen. A small video played. Sophie recognized the sound as the altercation between Ashton and the paparazzo from earlier that day. Ashton hastily stopped the video and studied his phone more.

"What is it?" Sophie said, pulling her eyes from the road again.

Ashton' face was stone cold until he began to breathe heavily and still he read the phone.

"Ash," Sophie said, reaching out to him.

"Stop the car."

"We're not home yet."

"Sophie. Stop the car."

Sophie pulled over and Ashton burst out of the car, his phone clutched tightly in his hands. Sophie scrambled out after him. "Ash, what's going on?"

"I can't do it," Ashton practically growled and set off walking in the opposite direction.

Sophie followed, feeling uncomfortably like a lost puppy. "Is it that guy? Because fuck that guy, Ash." Sophie clung to the boy's name, hoping it would pull him back.

"I can't do it. Not to you. Or to myself."

"I don't care what people say."

Ashton turned around quickly, stopping Sophie with the dark look on his face. "I have to." He turned and walked away.

"Wait," Sophie shouted, and Ashton stopped.

"No. I can't do this. You can't be with me. I won't let it happen."

"What are you even talking about, Ash. Just get in the car, we can talk about it." Sophie moved for him.

"Please stop."

"Ash."

Ashton turned to look at him again. "Don't follow me, Sophie," he said, hard and unforgiving.

"Calum's is that way," Sophie said dumbly, pointing, and Ashton corrected his path.

Sophie tried to tell herself what she had seen on Ashton' face was regret or pain. The fact of the matter was, Ashton was all talk and no follow through. He wanted to be strong, but he didn't trust Sophie to be strong with him.

Sophie didn't drive angry. She didn't slam the door.

Because, yes, okay, __yes__ , it was kind of immediately stupid of her to fall so hard for a guy that she had met less than a week ago. Even if that guy just fit, fit into her life so quickly and easily and naturally. Ashton kissed her and it was everything.

She stood quietly in the doorway, looking up at Hannah, who was seated on the stairs and frowning at her phone until she looked up at Sophie.

"It was Ashton," she said, holding the phone. "He said—"

"Did he ask you not to tell me?"

Hannah paused. "Yes."

"Then you should respect his confidence and desire for privacy because you're his friend too and it would be unfair to put you in that position. I am fine. I made a mistake but I am fine," she said almost robotically, pushing her way up the stairs and into her room. She spotted Ashton' beanie and sunglasses on her bed. She gingerly collected them and shoved them into a drawer, completely unable to handle their very existence at the moment.

She didn't know what to look for, so she typed Ashton's name into Google.

 _ _Ashton Irwin Attacks Reporter__ read a headline. Sophie clicked on it.

The article made it look as though the attack was unwarranted and concluded with speculation as to who Sophie was. The comments below the article were expressing their disappointment in Ashton and how they thought he was on an uncontrollable downward spiral. Sophie's face burned in anger.

He clicked another article cover Ashton' trip to Sheffield from __Heat__. A screencap of Ashton' Twitter stopped her. It was the picture of Sophie and Cardboard Ashton and was captioned, "my new favorite possession x".

Sophie wondered briefly, __did he mean the cutout or me__.

A video of Ashton splashing Sophie and a few fan-taken photos of Sophie and Ashton standing close to each other were embedded in the article as well, accompanied by fresh speculation about Ashton and Sophie's relationship.

She opened a new tab but willed herself to stop immediately. Her hands, the traitors that they were, fell easily over the keys as she typed __Sophie Pashley__ and hit enter.

"How's my favorite OT3?" Calum chirped from where he was playing a video game in the common area as soon as Ashton walked in. Ashton nearly ran to his room.

He had fuckity fucking fucked everything up the second he put his hands on Sophie Pashley, __noted__ _ _terrorist Sophie Pashley__ , terrorizing Ashton all night with goofiness and fondness and earnestness, and there was no chance Sophie didn't know what she was doing. That she didn't know she was slowly torturing Ashton every time she knelt down by that kid two lanes over and studiously listened to the kid's bowling tips after it was clear to the kid Sophie was completely incompetent in the game. That she didn't think Ashton couldn't just gloss over the fact that Sophie said she __needed him__. That she didn't have a Grand Master Plan of Seduction via one fucking trip to a bowling alley. And that was already on top of the other groundwork she had been laying all week.

Ashton kissed her and Sophie kissed him back and it was everything and nothing else really mattered because Ashton was __happy__ , like pure and simple happiest-in-his-whole-life-happy in those few minutes, and he didn't want to regret it. But reality hits like a motherfucker.

Never go on the internet. You never go on the internet. Rule number one, never read anything on the internet.

 _ _Get on The Daily Mail and call me as soon as you can__ , the first text from Luke had read. Followed by two missed phone calls when he was in the bowling alley and a final __Ashton call me instantly__ that had chimed in the car.

Ashton paced his room and Luke answered almost immediately.

"Did you see it?" Luke asked.

"Yeah."

"What happened?"

"It's not as it looks. Of course the video doesn't show that fucking prick harassing Sophie. That piece of shit."

"Who's Sophie?"

Ashton' breath caught in his chest. "Hannah's friend." Sophie. Sophie. Sophie.

"You can't—you shouldn't have hit the guy, Ash."

Ashton stopped in his tracks. Ash. Ash. Ash. "No shit, Luke," he snapped.

" _ _Ask me if I give a motherfuck__!" Mikey shouted in the background.

" _ _Mikey__ ," Luke hissed to him.

"Sorry," Mikey lied.

"We're doing damage __control__ ," Luke explained to Ashton and maybe also to Mikey. "We were working under the assumption that you have not gone completely insane. Modest is going crazy. The nightly entertainment shows here played the thing on repeat, as though they'd glean something new from twenty seconds of you swearing profusely."

"What are they saying?" Ashton asked.

"The usual. You're reckless, violent. Possibly on drugs. That you are cheating on Hannah with this girl-"

"Hannah and I were never dating. I'll tell them that." Ashton fumed. Of course he was considered romantically linked to literally anyone he'd ever been photographed with.

And of course. Typical, typical, complete overreaction over nothing. The types of "news" outlets that said these things were never reputable. But no crowd really ever took a moment to consider reputability before believing a story. They __wanted__ a scandal.

Ashton wasn't even sorry. He wasn't sorry at all about any of it. He was on __private time__ and private time belonged to nobody else, least of all fucking paparazzi.

"No. You say nothing until we've worked out a strategy. No Twitter either."

"I'll come home. Right now. I'll get on the first flight from Heathrow."

"I'll call Lauren. Keep your mobile by you, we'll keep ringing you."

"Yeah."

Luke hesitated. "Are you all right?"

"I've been taught how to safely throw a punch, Luke."

"That's not what I meant."

Ashton attempted and failed to breathe evenly.

"Ashton."

"What."

"We're here for you," Luke said quietly, as though divulging a secret.

A tear escaped down Ashton' cheek for the first time that night. "Thanks."

Ashton gave himself five minutes to wallow. His hands clutched at his hair as a scream erupted from him.

He was a coward but he was doing the right thing. He was protecting Sophie at all costs. In a few weeks, she would be forgotten. She wouldn't have articles written about him. Nobody would invade her privacy. Nobody would anonymously attack her on the internet.

Ashton wouldn't be the cause of her pain. He couldn't get the look of Sophie's total fear and anxiety out of his mind, especially now that the whole world had footage of it.

He didn't take to Twitter in a righteous fury. He didn't call to demand the pap's head on a plate.

Because yes, okay, __yes__ , also, he can't date a girl. He can't. Ashton is an object. Objects have specifically designed purposes, dictated by their creators. Sophie Pashley wasn't his specifically designed purpose, as dictated by management. And he hated himself for admitting it.

He quietly packed his things and walked downstairs to Calum.

"I need to get to Heathrow."

"I don't think the trains are running this late," he said with a small grin, though how anybody could be grinning at a time like this was beyond Ashton.

"I will pay you a thousand pounds to drive me to Heathrow right now."

Calum's smile faltered. "I don't want your money, mate."

"Fine," Ashton said and walked out, irritated at having the phrase thrown at him twice in a day.

"Wait, are you in trouble?" Calum ran after him.

"Yes."

"All right. I'll get my keys." Calum looked at him deeply, with concern. The pain in Ashton' chest reminded him of why he didn't do this sort of thing. He didn't have attachments.

"Awkward silence or radio?" Calum asked as they drove off.

"Talk to me about football."

"I can definitely do that."

Calum did that for three hours. Ashton didn't sleep but he sat and listened as peacefully as he could while the sounds of Calum's enthusiasm washed over him.

Calum nodded to himself after a few minutes of quiet. "There're a lot of real wankers in the world." Ashton grunted his agreement. "But you happened upon three of the good ones. Before you ask, I'm the third good one."

"Yes, you are," Ashton agreed quickly.

"It sure looks like we're three nice freaks swimming in a tank full of shark wankers, but I think you'll be surprised there are more people like us in the world."

"Okay," Ashton said carefully.

"You are in trouble with Hannah and Sophie, are you not?"

Ashton rubbed his face. "Sort of, yeah."

"That's what I thought. I'm what they call __intuitive__. It's what makes me a great bartender."

"You're a shit bartender." Ashton thought of how he never seemed to actually work the entire night Ashton was there.

"To each his own," Calum said, as though that solved everything. "I say these things because you walk around sometimes with this look of complete bewilderment when people are, like, nice to you."

"Can we not talk about football?"

"No. It's two am and I'm driving you literally across the fuckin' __country__."

"Fair point."

" _ _Anyway__ if you opened up a little more, you might be able to find more than three good ones. And it's really important to remember where you belong."

"I belong in LA," Ashton said immediately, and he felt that was the truth. He belonged to being an actor. And there was nothing at all magical about small towns, no matter what the movies said. Small towns were practically suffocating.

"I was speaking more metaphorical belonging than physical belonging, but it's great that you've got that bit sorted. What I'm saying is you belong with people who care about you and who appreciate you. And not shark wankers. That's the end of my sage advice, incidentally, and now we return you to your regularly scheduled programming. Not because you asked me, though, but because I was going to be done anyway."

Ashton closed his eyes and refused to think of anything the remainder of the car ride. Calum pulled up to the drop off area in front of the airport and got out with him. They stood together looking through the doors.

"Seems like I should give you a hug or something," Calum said. "It's not as fancy a sendoff as you probably would have had."

"Seems like." Calum hugged him and Ashton patted his back awkwardly. "I'll send you a check for the school, okay? I won't forget."

"'Course, mate, when you can," Calum said easily. Ashton wondered briefly what it would be like to be as easy as Calum.

They stood for another moment. "Calum, I um…" Ashton couldn't think of anything to say, but Calum was already climbing into the car.

"All right, see ya. Well. Probably not," he called with a smile and drove off.

Ashton didn't really know what day it was or what time it was when he finally stumbled into his home in Los Angeles. He saw Mikey in his kitchen and sort of collapsed into him with a hug.

Mikey was shocked for a moment but fell quickly and easily into the hug as well, wrapping his arms and softly rubbing his back. "This is our first hug."

"I'm trying something new. Don't talk about it. Don't look at me."

"Okay."

Mikey held him until Ashton pulled away. This was his new favorite Mikey, the one with quiet, unassuming eyes, an affectionate smile, and a warm hug.

Ashton wondered what was happening to him.

"I made a mistake," he said quietly.

"What happened, babe?"

"I almost fell in love."

"With Hannah?"

"With Sophie."

Mikey nodded without judgment. Ashton felt like he was going to collapse. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

"Should you talk about it?"

Ashton sighed deep. They adjourned to the living room sofa and he spilled everything. Mikey, to his credit yet again, didn't lecture or comment or judge or frown. He simply said, "What can I do to help you?"

"I have to work. Or I'll drown."

"Okay. We do the work." Mikey stood, as if work was going to happen right then instead of sleep, which was honestly what was __really__ going to happen.

"Mikey." Ashton felt like an idiot asking, but he needed to know. "Are we friends?"

"Do you want to be friends?"

"Desperately."

Mikey smiled big, which rubbed off on Ashton. He pulled Ashton off the couch and into another hug. "Then we're friends."

"You're a marshmallow, Mikey Clifford," Ashton said into Mikey's shoulder.

"Have you been watching __Veronica Mars__?"

"I don't think I know Veronica Mars. Have I met her?"


	9. Chapter 9

Ashton did the work. Early morning to late evenings, he trained for his upcoming audition. He went on carefully selected interviews to explain his violent behavior. He was largely forgiven once fan footage of the encounter surfaced and showed the situation a little clearer. Ashton still didn't like having to explain himself, because he didn't owe anyone shit. But that's what Mikey said was the right thing to do, and Ashton believed him.

He texted Hannah constantly, practically dying with relief that she harbored no ill will. He had said goodbye over the phone and lightly explained himself. Hannah didn't ask questions and she rarely talked about Sophie.

A few weeks after he left, she had confided in Ashton that she found Sophie reading articles about herself on the internet and fuming over articles that attacked Ashton. Sophie claimed it was not a big deal, but Hannah shut it down immediately. Ashton almost called Sophie then and there, but didn't. Sophie, the big idiot, was going to undo everything Ashton had done by letting her go. Sophie was supposed to be free of Ashton's shitty obligation to belong to strangers and paparazzi and critics who decided whether he should live or die (metaphorically, he supposed) based on fickle whims. Sophie was too good for them. And Ashton.

Hannah had been on Twitter, constantly defending Ashton and the very platonic nature of their friendship and imploring for Sophie's privacy. Mikey was calling Hannah weekly to talk over what she was and wasn't allowed to say. She took it like a pro. Eventually Sophie was forgotten by the media at large and Ashton didn't have to answer any questions about her and lie about the very platonic nature of their friendship. Ashton didn't have to think about kissing her so much anymore.

Ashton' management quickly tried to fix him up with a new girl, which Ashton repeatedly declined and Luke never pushed him into it like he used to. Luke was quieter and frowned more and Ashton tried not to think about it. It was his go-to attitude, not thinking about it, for everything these days so he didn't get buried under all the guilt he felt.

Three days before the __Cabaret__ audition, Luke was fired from Modest. Ashton was in a rage.

Luke showed up at Ashton' house with a box of the things from his office under one arm, Cardboard Ashton under the other, and a modest sized bottle of gas station-bought alcohol.

"It is what it is," Luke said soberly. He had yet to even touch the alcohol and it had been an hour.

Ashton made a sour face at that line. "They have no fucking right!"

"Technically—"

"Cut the shit, Lu. They have no __right__."

"I don't know what I'll do now." Luke's sad brown eyes were slowly murdering Ashton.

"Whatever you want to. You're free."

"I don't know what I want to do. I'm Ashton Irwin's manager. That's who I am."

"What are you talking about, that's who you are?"

"You define me, Ashton. My life is my career and you define my career. By the transitive property of mathematics, you define me."

The transitive property __what__. "Luke, don't say that." Mostly it made Ashton uncomfortable to be considered the center of Luke's world. To be responsible for somebody's identity. "Don't say that at all. You're __you__ and you're great and you don't need me because of the two of us, I very clearly need you. I am dangerously dependent on you."

Luke waved it off and Ashton felt frustrated, like he wasn't being heard. "Honestly, I'm just-I'm surprised I didn't get the sack when you started getting the tattoos," Luke said.

"You got in trouble because of the tattoos?"

Luke shook his head but Ashton knew it was a yes. "That wasn't as big a deal as this is now, plus all this stuff for the last year. And I let all of __this__ happen. They don't want you in __Cabaret__. They want you in Don't Stop _ _.__ And they want you with Laura or Beth or Anna."

"I let it happen. I want this show." Ashton also didn't want Laura or Beth or Anna. He wanted __Sophie__ , but he was supposed to be forgetting all about that for the good of both of them. If he couldn't have Sophie, he wasn't planning on having anyone.

"I'm your __manager.__ I'm supposed to get you to do the interviews and say the right things and do the right things and not wreck cars and punch reporters and scandalize people at the Oscars and." Luke sighed. "Now what do I do."

Ashton flared in anger. Of course they would blame Luke because they think he's in control. That Ashton has no autonomy. Ashton knew what he had to do. Ashton owed it to Luke and to himself and to Sophie to be strong and do something about it. To be strong.

"Fuck it. I'm firing them."

"I could become an explorer," Luke said to himself, lying out on the sofa. Then he shot back up. "Wait, what did you just say?" His eyes widened so far it couldn't possibly be safe for his face. "You can't."

"Watch me," Ashton growled, snatching his keys and phone and heading for the door. He stormed back into the living room quickly. "I need a ride. I don't have a car."

Luke shook out of his befuddled haze. "Right."

Ashton could pretend all he wanted that he was trying to protect Sophie when he left her. But he was mostly scared. Scared to follow through on the promise of strength. Scared to face Sophie when he couldn't go through with it. Scared of disappointing both Sophie and himself by being complacent. All sorts of selfish fear. He was above all else scared of giving himself to Sophie.

But he fucked everything up with Sophie and there was no going back to fix it now. There was only moving forward and doing what he could to make sure he didn't fuck everything up going forward. He could do right by Luke, who had supported him through the years, who had been a rock. And he could do right by himself. By doing the most reckless thing of his reckless adulthood.

 _ _I've been a real fucking tit¸__ he texted to Hannah as Luke drove.

 ** _ _ **This I know**__** ¸ she texted back quickly.

 _ _did I break her?__

 _ _ **Check your ego, Irwin. Sophie's life doesn't revolve around you.**__

 _ _sorry, you're right. I'm a tit. just tell me if she's okay now__

 _ _ **Sometimes she wears that beanie you left. Although maybe she thinks it was hers.**__

 _ _ **She's okay. Mostly embarrassed.**__

 _ _embarrassed?__

 _ _ **You should talk to her.**__

 _ _I can't__

 _ _ **Yeah, I thought you'd say that.**__

 _ _you don't think that would just hurt her more?__

 _ _ **Oh my god. You are both complete fucking idiots.**__

As Ashton thought before, if he couldn't have Sophie, he wasn't planning on having anyone. Which he admitted, on good days (this day was a good day), is fucking __dumb__ because it's unhealthy and unproductive and unfair to himself. Ashton knew he wasn't spending enough time on himself. That's what you're supposed to do in these types of situations, you're supposed to __spend time finding yourself__.

Ashton was confusing himself. At the end of the day, Ashton wanted to be happy with himself. To put forth the best, most honest version of himself. One that he could be proud of in the future. And nobody was responsible for making that happen other than Ashton fucking Irwin __himself__.

That's who he was. __Ashton Fucking Irwin!__ And Ashton Fucking Irwin (name change pending) gets what he wants. Starting now, at least. Probably.

Ashton Fucking Irwin wanted control of his life. He wanted to sing and dance on the goddamn Great White Way. He wanted to be good to the people who were good to him, even though he knew he didn't deserve them. He wanted Sophie—fuck, no, that's __done__. He wanted to be enthusiastic. He wanted to breathe a little bit easier. He wanted to take responsibility for himself.

Luke parked by the curb in front of the Modest offices he left only a few hours ago. Ashton jumped out of the car and Luke was quick to follow.

"You shouldn't do this. The retribution will—"

"Do you have my back?"

"Of course," Luke said, startled.

"Mikey?"

"He would follow you to the end of the earth. We both would."

Ashton knelt in front of Luke and grabbed Luke's hand. "Luke Hemminfs, will you be my manager?"

"Get off the ground." Luke looked around nervously.

"Will you be my manager?"

"Yes, of course, I will."

"For richer or, more than likely, poorer, in contract violation and in health, so long as we both shall live in Los Angeles and/or New York?"

"I do. Please get up."

Ashton stood up. "Then that's all I need. Even if I don't get __Cabaret__ , this is the right thing to do." He clapped a hand to Luke's neck fondly. "You stay here, love."

"Why?"

"Because your sad puppy eyes make me want to behave. And I plan to light that office on fire."

Luke looked panicked, Ashton Wrinkle in full force.

"Metaphorically. It's a metaphorical fire. Dear god, Hemmings."

"I don't want you to get in any more trouble. You don't have to do this for me."

"I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it __for me__ ," Ashton said, throwing all of his mock sincerity and rom com eyes at the cheesy line until Luke finally rolled his eyes. Ashton smiled and slapped Luke lightly on the cheek. "That's better."

Ashton strutted toward the building. No turning back now. Probably.

People would hate him.

 _ _I don't care what people say__ , Sophie had said.

Well then, neither would Ashton.

Sophie was happy living in New York. She had committed to six months in the Times Square Espressoself shop, working on perfecting her baking skills in the large store's bakery. She baked for thousands of people a day. Sometimes she wandered up to the front and took care of customers when it was busy to get any and all feedback she could from them.

She took classes regularly. She was caught in an unbelievable culture shock. Turns out she knew little to nothing about the actual chemistry of baking or the practical application of baking en masse. The work was hard and time consuming and full of mistakes and Sophie loved every minute of it. It was fulfilling in every sense and she was thankful every day she wasn't a total twat about calling Simon.

The only issue with New York was Ashton Irwin. More specifically, just his face, which was plastered in almost every subway stop all the way to fucking Washington Heights. It was a dangerous and seductive looking photo of him, all windswept hair and eyeliner and angular features. Sophie didn't know that was a look that really worked for him, but it was, it __really worked for him__. But Sophie wondered really if it was just Ashton doing all the work. Either way, it took a few weeks before Sophie was able to get over it.

Because she was over it. She wasn't going to be that kid from __My Week With Marilyn__.

Even though she did every once in a while catch herself imagining Ashton walking through the doors of her store, hopping the Espressoself counter, pulling Sophie close to him by the apron, kissing her until she didn't remember how to breathe. And then subsequently groveling for hours.

But the truth was something different. She was embarrassed about practically throwing herself at a boy, one he had only known for a week. Embarrassed for having spent an immeasurable amount of time thinking about him. Embarrassed about the amount of terrible things she had read about herself on the internet until everyone forgot about her. Embarrassed that she embarrassed Ashton.

Embarrassed on behalf of the goddamn __Cabaret__ marketing team.

But she was over it and still happy and sort of flirting with the guy at the M&M Store. And Hannah was in town this week. They tore up the town, Sophie finally able to do all of the sightseeing she had missed out on. Sophie had her best girl and her best job and her best town.

"Mikey got me two tickets to __Cabaret__ ," Hannah said as casually as possible from her spot atop a counter in Sophie's new litchen, which was even tinier than the litchen back home. Her eyes were resolutely stuck to Sophie's laptop.

"I can't, H," Sophie said, scrubbing a pot a little harder than necessary.

"You have until I get out of the shower to change your mind. Wear a goddamn dress, we are dressing for __the theatre__." She hopped down and set the laptop pointed directly at Sophie. She waited until she heard the bathroom door close before she looked at it.

It was a video titled __Side by Side by Susan Blackwell: Ashton Irwin__. Ashton was puttering around a kitchen with a lady who was asking him the weirdest interview questions as they made cupcakes.

"You clearly know nothing about baking," the interviewer said.

"Not a damn thing. I know a few bakers, one tried to take me under her wing once."

"Nothing stuck?"

"Absolutely nothing. But I really like cupcakes," he said, frosting a cupcake carefully. His determination was devastatingly cute. Ashton was using the swirling technique Sophie had taught him.

"God, these are terrible," he said, after the video jump cut to the two of them eating their cupcakes.

"Acting, yes, singing, yes, dancing, yes, baking, never again," she said. Ashton nodded furiously.

Sophie didn't want to but she smiled anyway.

"It's time, are you ready?" she asked him, an odd non-sequitur to Sophie.

Ashton made a face. "No, I'm not ready."

The woman smeared a little frosting on his cheek and licked it up slowly. Sophie's face scrunched up immediately. __Nope__ , she thought.

She clicked on a video in the sidebar: __Ashton Irwin Talks Cabaret, Hannah, and Fame__. Ashton had nothing but glowing things to say about his Broadway debut. Sophie thought she could feel Ashton' enthusiasm through the screen.

When the interviewer asked about Hannah, his face fell into the passive mask Sophie recognized too well. Sophie could tell this wasn't supposed to be part of the interview.

"Hannah is great. We talk weekly. I'm very grateful to count her as my friend. And she thinks I'm all right."

"Is it weird for her to have a friend who's a world-famous celebrity?"

Ashton made an impatient face. "Hannah has a friend who's a __person__. I'm a person now, and I'll be a person after everyone's forgotten about me. My job doesn't mean anything more to our friendship than hers does. I love my job and I'm very fortunate to have people who love the work I do. I do it for them. Fame isn't a factor I'm interested in."

"That's a very easy thing for a famous person to say."

"Yes, it is," Ashton said levelly. "But I'd rather be remembered for being a good person to the people I love and appreciative of everyone who is good to me. If I have to be remembered at all."

Sophie snapped the laptop closed. "Shit," she said quietly and went to change for the show. Story of her fucking life.

Literally nothing could have prepared her for the opening number of __Cabaret__ , which featured Ashton, in all his pseudo-punk glory and little to no clothing, giving a dangerous and seductive performance. So maybe the poster should have prepared her but the poster didn't feature his __hips__. Ashton worked his way with ease through the sensual choreography with the scantily clad men and women of the chorus. Sophie too easily imagined herself up there with them being manipulated by the puppet master Ashton Irwin, echoes of the song Ashton had sung for them back home.

Sophie didn't remember enough of __Cabaret__ to know whether or not the Emcee was actually a dangerous character or if he considered Ashton a dangerous presence.

Hannah casually fanned herself with her playbill and Sophie casually adjusted herself in her seat.

Among other emotions, Sophie felt pride and affection surge in her chest. Ashton was good and comfortable and natural and, shit, like, __good__. Sophie almost resented the amount of stage time Sally Bowles and the actual plot had, if it meant keeping Ashton offstage or out of focus. This is really what it meant to see Ashton at home.

Sophie took several calming breaths outside the theatre during intermission while Hannah volunteered to queue for the bar. She was being watched by a man as he was smoking a cigarette next to one of those damned posters.

Sophie smiled at him. Why the fuck not. The man smiled back hesitantly and continued to stare. "Good show," Sophie said conversationally.

"Hasn't gotten old yet," said the man, smiling easier.

"Have you seen it before?"

"Seven or eight times. I've lost track."

"Oh, wow." Sophie wasn't sure what to make of that.

She was saved by Hannah, who popped only her head through the doors outside. "Soph, I'm legally unable to bring these drinks outsi—Mikey!" She turned her smile on Sophie's stranger.

"Hey, babe, glad you made it," Mikey said.

"I'd come hug you, but," she said.

"Open container laws, yeah. I'll catch you after. I'll take you back to him."

"Cheers. At your leisure, Soph." Hannah nodded and popped back into the theatre.

"You're Ashton' Mikey, then?" Sophie said lightly.

"Oh no, do __not__ refer to me that way. If he gets wind of it, I'll be __Ashton' Mikey__ for an eternity. Possessive little shit."

Sophie laughed.

"Are you Ashton' Sophie?" he said quietly.

Maybe her heart skipped a beat. "For better or for worse," she said without thinking and immediately regretted her choice of words. Sophie backed away toward the lobby. "Don't tell him I'm here. I don't want to make him uncomfortable."

Sophie disappeared into the house and squeezed her way back to Hannah as the lights dimmed and the orchestra started up. She took an appreciative sip of whatever Hannah had gotten her.

Hannah I've never experienced so much collective unresolved sexual tension in my life."

Sophie snorted the drink up her nose and sputtered and laughed with Hannah so loud they got a couple of shushes.

"I've got dibs on the shower first then," she whispered and they collapsed into hushed giggles like the grownups they were.

Hannah found Mikey after the show and he brought her backstage to meet with Ashton in his dressing room. Sophie insisted she would wait out by the stage door for her so they could go home together.

There was a barricade around the stage door where a small mountain of fans waited for the cast. Sophie stood as far from the door as she could while still in viewing range. She was easily as enthusiastic as the crowd. She'd had a great time and hadn't, after the initial shock, been too bothered by Ashton. Even if every time Ashton sort of brushed his lips over another actor's, Sophie wanted to shout.

Ashton exited last, to the raucous cheer of the small crowd. Sophie might've swore she saw Ashton blush. Fucking precious. But probably not real.

Sophie looked for Hannah but didn't see her. She tried (and failed) not to keep her eyes glued to Ashton as he dutifully signed playbills and took silly photos. Sophie wondered if it would take hours before Ashton had greeted every person as thoroughly as he wanted to. Ashton also looked freshly showered, which wasn't particularly fair.

Ashton looked like he caught sight of Sophie soon enough, or so Sophie imagined because a moment later, Ashton was leaning back toward a fan and speaking to her. Ashton looked up again hesitantly and held the stare and Sophie thought __Oh fuck__ and __Why am I here a__ nd then she couldn't move. She couldn't move even as she watched Ashton excused himself, reassuring the crowd he would return shortly, and walked over to Sophie and leaned his face down and kissed her.

The kiss probably lasted hours, who was counting, and Sophie's head spun and part of her told her this was a bad idea and the remainder of her said shut the hell up. She sighed into the kiss and felt like she was on fire. Like in a good way, mostly.

Ashton detached himself from Sophie and Sophie saw every person in line was watching them. There may have been some cheering and applause.

"Oops," Sophie said, pulling her eyes back up to Ashton, who was looking firmly down at her.

"Hi," Ashton said simply.

"That was a thing you did."

Ashton nodded solemnly. "I did do a thing."

"I am mad at you. This was unfair." Sophie frowned and Ashton pulled his eyebrows up.

"I should have asked you. I'm sorry."

"Yes," Sophie said resolutely, though she wasn't sure that response made sense.

"We should talk."

Sophie nodded then, probably a little stronger than necessary.

"I've got to," Ashton trailed off, gesturing to the chattering crowd. "Wait for me?"

"Yeah," Sophie said. "Against my better judgment," she mumbled to herself as Ashton turned to the crowd. A few of them cheered again.

Hannah, who had appeared from thin air, cheered the hardest and collapsed onto Sophie.

"Don't say it," Sophie said.

"Say what?"

"Any words in the English language."

"Do you want to wait in the green room?" Mikey asked. Sophie hadn't even seen him; Mikey looked about as baffled as Sophie was. Sophie nodded dumbly and allowed herself to be let to the green room, which was a little lounge area underneath the stage.

A casual-dressed man looked up from where he sat on the couch. "Is he ready? Oh."

Sophie looked back at Mikey, who said, "This is Sophie."

"Oh!" he said again and jumped off the couch. He clutched Sophie's hand. "I'm Luke, Ashton' manager, it's a pleasure."

Mikey pulled Luke close and said something quietly in his ear, which Sophie thought was all but certainly about how Ashton and Sophie just kissed each other like it was going out of style. Luke's lips pursed a little, but not in anger. Sophie stood awkwardly.

"Mikey, __look at this__!" Hannah shouted from outside the room. Mikey's eyes widened as he flitted out to stop her from touching something, more than likely.

"Ashton talked about you," Sophie said because she didn't know what to say. Luke didn't look quite as put together as he pictured with the baggy t-shirt and jeans.

"All terrible, no fun, daddy Luke type things, I'm sure."

"He said you worry about him."

Luke's smile softened a little. "Constantly."

"So do I," Sophie said and sat down.

Luke nodded and sat as well. "I worry less now. Which is kind of ridiculous because we're in more trouble now than we were before."

Sophie stiffened. "Is he okay?"

"No, not like. He's fired his management company about eight months ago and. Well, they're not very happy. I don't know if he's told you anything about?"

Sophie nodded but she wasn't sure how much she wanted to give away of what Ashton had told her. She settled on, "They made him miserable."

"Among other things, yes. He's happier now, though, I guess. I don't know how to describe it."

"That's so great." Sophie let the warmth she felt radiate up into a smile.

"It is," Luke said, returning the smile. "He's very hard on himself. Just sort of in general. But also after. Well." He made a sort of general gesture to the room, but Sophie took it to mean Luke was talking about Sophie. "Honestly I'm not even sure he was going to survive it. But he gets stubborn, you know this." Sophie nods gamely. "Anyway these last few months have been kind of a relief."

"Do you think it's going to be okay?"

Luke chuckled a little. "No clue, mate. But I think he's at peace with his life right now. Well, that's not the phrase he would use. He says he's __enthusiastic__. I think it's because—"

"Luke," Mikey said from the doorway. Sophie watched baffled as the two had a silent conversation across the room. "Drinks?" he said at last.

"Right. Sophie, again, a pleasure." Luke clapped his shoulder and Sophie smiled. "Ash will know where we are." Hannah entered as they exited. She sat on Sophie's lap.

"You should go with them," Sophie said.

"You trying to get rid of me?"

"Yes," Sophie said firmly.

She ducked her head into Sophie's neck. "I can't tell if I should have not pressured you to come here."

"I will let you know by the end of the night."

"I love you." She rose and shuffled to the door.

"Keep your phone by you, yeah?" she called. Hannah nodded and lingered. "I love you, but piss off."

Sophie waited for Ashton over an hour. She scanned the bookshelf of shit paperback books and flipped through the television with disinterest. Anything to try to keep her from drowning in anxiety waiting for Ashton Irwin (!) to turn her life upside down like he usually did. __I was over it__ , she told herself. Was it really a good idea to open up to him again? Did she believe in second chances?

She was sat on the floor, through about three-quarters of a deck building a card castle before she was interrupted.

"The thing you have to know about me is that I'm completely irrational and not at all well-adjusted and as such I've spent every night of the last two months of shows hoping I would see you here," Ashton said quietly from where he leaned against the door in an obvious attempt to look cool. He was succeeding, as far as Sophie was concerned. "I went through every possible scenario in my head, planning intricate, elaborate apologies and. Nothing ever seemed adequate."

Sophie didn't know what to say. She settled on a safe question. "You knew I was in New York?"

"I had no idea. Are you here long?"

"I've got three more months here before I'm due back in London. Espressoself."

Ashton' face burst into a grin. "You called them. That's." He paused. "I'm glad you stayed to talk. Otherwise that would have made my grand gesture a little embarrassing."

He took a seat close to Sophie but still respecting the distance.

"Were you waiting long?"

"Luke stayed with me a while," Sophie said diplomatically.

Ashton gave a little chuckle. "Oh, Luke."

"He's not how I pictured."

"He's going through a bit of an identity crisis right now. He burned all his button up shirts about six months ago in this giant sort of cleansing bonfire—it's, I don't know. Anyway." Ashton shrugged.

They sat in silence for moments. Ashton' eyes threatened to bore a hole into Sophie's face.

"Tell me about the grand gesture," Sophie said.

"It was an apology and a declaration of intention."

Sophie looked at him carefully. "What are your intentions?"

"To kiss you like that as much as humanly possible."

 _ _Ah. There he is,__ Sophie thought. Sophie nodded sagely. "Honorable."

"I'm trying to do the right thing," Ashton said carefully.

"Also honorable."

"I am though. I'm working on it and it's slow and painful. But I'm trying. Because I know I wasn't trying before. I owe you so much and I know I don't deserve it but. Fuck, though, I don't know how you can forgive me."

Sophie pursed her lips. "I'm not really sure what happened. Were you. Embarrassed? Did I embarrass you?"

Ashton' face fell. "God, no, Sophie, __no__ , you could never embarrass me. I'm so grateful to know you, you can't even imagine how I-" He reached a hand out, but then lowered it back to his lap. "Is that what you thought?"

"One of the things, yeah. Like, the pap video, that's what you were watching in the car. I read the articles and the shit they were saying about you. I felt like. You didn't want to be associated with any of it. All you said was I can't do it. I don't know what I was supposed to think."

"I'm so sorry, Sophie," he said quietly.

"It would have been nice if you had called me."

Ashton flicked his eyes away from Sophie for the first time. "I didn't want to make it worse. I was really scared."

"So you kept saying."

"It was just a big thing. I liked you so much and so fast, and I felt it, like, deep, like cliché, film-like levels of deepness with like big orchestral swellings and fireworks and that doesn't happen to me. I've done nothing to deserve that and I didn't know how to handle that. It was a big step, and I wasn't prepared for it."

"It didn't have to be a big thing. I didn't know what we were doing either."

"I don't know how to be with someone else," Ashton said helplessly.

"We could have worked it out together. Slowly. I would have waited for you to figure it out." Pressure seemed to lift from Sophie's chest as she released all of the things she wanted to say to Ashton since she had seen him last. Also from hearing once more how far Ashton had been gone for her, that part was nice too.

Ashton scowled. "That's not fair to you."

Sophie shrugged. "If it made you happy."

"You can't sacrifice your own happiness for the sake of mine, Sophie. That's not healthy. I mean. We didn't even know each other a week. You didn't even know if I was __worth it__."

"I said slowly." Sophie made a face. "And you __are__ worth it, you prat."

Ashton sighed, stopping Sophie before she effectively launched into a tirade about Ashton' worth. "It's absolutely fucking terrifying how selfless you are. That's part of why I like you so much and part of why I worry about you. Because you're too busy looking after everyone else to stop and think about getting what you want. That's a thing you do, do you realize that? Like every time I say __well what about you, Sophie__ , it seems like the thought never even crossed your mind. That's not right. Honestly.

"I'm very sorry I left. But. I want to protect you. Because my life is full of so much bullshit and it just isn't fair to you to drag you through it. And you would have done it too, only because I asked you to, and you would be miserable and you would grin and bear it because you would only be concerned with giving me what I want."

Sophie stared, unsure of how to process. "I don't understand. You just kissed me in front of like a giant crowd strangers and then came in here and told me you want to kiss me a lot more. And now you sound like you don't want to fix things? I'm getting a lot of mixed signals here, Ash."

"I know. I just." Ashton dragged his hands through his hair as he composed his thoughts. "I'm at war with myself and it's so fucking stupid, I can't even believe I just said that, __I'm at war with myself, god__. But I want to be selfish and I want you. But I also feel like I can't ask you to throw yourself to the fucking wolves and make yourself unhappy."

"I can handle myself," Sophie said, somewhat grumpily.

Ashton' face scrunched up. "The look on your face when that piece of shit came after you. Every time I saw it, I felt like I couldn't breathe. And I had that look of brokenness from four fucking camera angles. It haunted me. I had done that to you, I had given you reason to be miserable and if you were with me, Sophie, the shit would never stop. I can't do that. I can't ask you to become like me."

"You didn't do anything. It was my first time and I understand what it's like. I would have gotten used to that kind of thing."

"What if I don't want you to get used to it?"

Sophie understood where Ashton was coming from, but Sophie had already had somewhat of a thick skin. She was used to taunting and teasing and name-calling from when she was younger. It was just quite another thing for a grown man to say those things. "That's not your decision to make for me. You have to trust me. Because it's not about them. They don't even factor in. It's about you and me. You know? Fuck the rest of them."

"I know. You're strong."

"So are you," Sophie said honestly. Ashton shook his head and gave a humorless laugh.

"Why aren't you like screaming at me?" Ashton asked, deflecting in that way Sophie didn't like. "It's kind of worse that you're being so bloody level. Throw something."

"Why would I do that?" Sophie sighed exasperated.

"Because I made a huge mistake and I made both of us miserable and it took me almost a year to try to make it right."

"I don't want to scream at you."

"Why not? I did something wrong. You should stick up for yourself. You never stick up for yourself, Sophie, it drives me __mad__. Listen. To. Me. You can't let people use you like a doormat just because you want them to be happy, even if it means you're sacrificing your own comfort."

There it was again. Sophie scowled but she knew where she stood at last. "Okay. Fine. I'm not happy that you left without talking to me. It really made me angry and anxious and I felt stupid. But honestly, I worked through it. I was disappointed in you and disappointed in myself. And I didn't come here tonight hoping you'd sweep me off my feet—as if you could."

Ashton narrowed his eyes but Sophie soldiered on, rising to her+ feet. "I was hurt because it didn't seem like you trusted me with yourself. And not even on a romantic level, although obviously I was very much in favor of the romantic level, but like. We were friends, Ash. I know you said you didn't really know how to be friends, but like, do a Google search on how to be a friend, and I'm pretty sure trusting someone is really high up on the list. And I thought you had."

"I trust you, honestly. I didn't trust myself, Sophie, I'm so sor—"

"Just wait, please. You wanted it, you're getting it. No talking. Thing is. You say you're trying. But. You're really just still looking for an excuse not to be happy, aren't you?" Ashton nodded guiltily.

"Do you want me to be happy?" Sophie asked. Ashton nodded.

"Then do as I say. I'm happy when you're happy. You are __allowed__ to be happy. And I'm not just saying this because it's what you want. It's because I want it. Do you want this?" Ashton gave an especially rigorous nod.

"Don't run away from me. Trust me. Do you like me?" It seemed to pain Ashton not to speak but he still respectfully nodded.

"Good. I still like you. I respect that you're trying to do the right thing. I've seen it. But. Don't pressure yourself into figuring us out right now. We don't have to solve all of our problems and answer all of our questions and be the end-all, be-all of each other's lives __right now__ , so long as we promise to both work honestly and work together. We are going to talk so much you're going to get sick of it. We will make so many mistakes, but it'll be okay because we're going to talk about it. Because you know now, right? How dangerous it is to keep this shit bottled up inside of you?" Ashton nodded hopefully. Sophie smiled and took a few breaths to recover.

"Also kiss me again, if you would," Sophie said finally. Ashton approached her slowly. "Mind the castle," Sophie warned. Ashton stepped all over the castle, crushing it very carefully, with narrowed eyes. He pushed Sophie down onto the couch and lowered himself onto Sophie. Without a moment's hesitation, they collapsed desperately into each other.

"I really like you," Ashton breathed between a kiss. "I will keep working on doing the right thing, I swear. Just. Thank you."

"I like you too." Sophie pulled him back in. Sophie was right, Ashton Irwin was __so__ worth it. Mostly for the kissing, but also for like his personality or something.

Sophie and Ashton exited the theatre together through the stage door, which was now free of fans. Ashton put a gentle hand to Sophie's back in that exact spot Sophie liked best. Sophie snaked her arm around Ashton's waist and leaned into him. They fit.

Ashton led them up 8th Ave in a comfortable silence that Sophie eventually broke.

"Are you still scared?"

Ashton smiled. "Will you date me, Sophie Pashley?"

"Might as well," Sophie said with a casual shrug.

Ashton punched her arm.

"Ouch. _You_ didn't answer _my_ question," Sophie pointed out.

"I'm scared of large spiders, not the small ones, those are fine, but the rather large ones. I'm scared my teeth will fall out. I'm scared of the tiny dog that Luke just got." Ashton tightened around Sophie a little more. "I'm scared of dying. I'm scared my siblings have grown up not knowing who I am. I'm scared of the sound my phone makes when it gets an email, but I don't know how to change it. But you, Sophie Pashley, I will never be scared of. Henceforth. Thus shall I make a proclamation to the world."

"Make it so."

"I AM NOT AFRAID OF SOPHIE PASHLEY," he shouted up into the night. It's a credit to New York that nobody seemed to even look their way. "IN FACT I FIND HER QUITE REASSURING EVEN."

They collapsed into manly giggles. Ashton pressed a kiss to Sophie's neck.

"All right, then, you can take me to dinner," Sophie conceded.

"Excellent. Thank you. Dinner would make me very __enthusiastic__."

Sophie rolled her eyes, stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, and pulled Ashton into the second best kiss of Sophie's life so far.

She would leave first open for the future.


End file.
